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THE 



HISTORY, OBJECT, AND PROPER OBSERVANCE 



OF THE 



©olg Seaautt of Hetu: 



BY 



THE REV. WM. INGRAHAM KIP, D. D., 

AUTHOR OF "THE DOUBLE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH; "THE CHRISTMAS HOLYDAT3 

IN ROME:" "THE EARLY JESUIT MISSIONS IN NORTH AMERICA;" 

" THE EARLY CONFLICTS OF -CHRISTIANITY ; " 

&c, &c. 



" The world is -waxing strong, 

The day is hot, the flight is long, 
And therefore do I fast." 

Rev. F. W. Faber. 

LET US PRAY IN THE CHURCH, WITH THE CHURCH, AND FOR THE CHURCH." 

D. Mart. Luther i, Colloq. Mens., oh. xx 



jFtftf) 3Bt»ltlOH> 



ALBANY: ERASTTJS H. PEASE & CO., 82 STATE STREET. 

NEW YORK: STANFORD & SWORDS. 

MDCCCLni. 

J 



160 



Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1343, 

BY WM. INGRAHAM KIP, 
In the Clerk's office, of the Northern District of New York 









*<* J9i* 



o 



^ 7 ^ 



TO 
THE RIGHT REVEREND 

WILLIAM HEATHCOTE DELANCEY, D. D., LL.D.. 

BISHOP OF WESTERN NEW YORK. 



13 



AS A SLIGHT TESTIMONY OF RESPECT AND 
AFFECTIONATE REGARD, 

EY 



O every where we find our suffering God, 

And where He trod 
May set our steps : the Cross on Calvary 

Uplifted high 
Beams on the martyr host; a beacon light 

In open fight. 

To the still wrestlings of the lonely heart 

He doth impart 
The virtue of his midnight agony, 

When none was nigh, 
Save God and one good angel, to assuage 

The tempest's rage. 

Mortal! if life smiles on thee, and thou find 

All to thy mind, 
Think, who did once from Heaven to Hell descend 

Thee to befriend: 

So shalt thou dare forego, at His dear call, 

Thy best, thine all. 

Keble. 



PREFACE 



For some years past each return of Lent has 
been, we believe, regarded with additional inte- 
rest Many who were not trained up within 
the pale of the Church, are looking to her fold 
as a refuge more fixed and stable than any they 
can find elsewhere. They of course eagerly in- 
quire into the History, Object, and Proper Ob- 
servance of the Holy Seasons which are set 
forth in her Calendar. Among those, too, who 
have been educated to attend her services, there 
seems to be a growing appreciation of their 
beauty, and a wish to know more of their origin. 
They appear to be turning away from the empty, 
boastful professions of this age of novelties, and 
to be more inclined to adopt as a settled princi- 



Vlll. PREFACE. 

pie, that golden decision of the Council of Nice, 

E<fy ap^aia xpar£i<rw, Let ANCIENT USAGES PREVAIL. 

In this state of things, the writer has frequently 
sought — but without success — for something, 
which in a small compass might contain the 
necessary information with respect to the Lenten 
Fast. He could only find, a few pages by one 
author — a sermon by another — or perhaps some 
brief tracts, which, although excellent in them- 
selves, did not attempt to discuss the whole sub- 
ject. Having waited therefore for several years 
in vain, in the hope that the desired work would 
be furnished by some one better able to do it jus- 
tice, he has at length ventured himself to under- 
take the task. 

After the following pages were prepared for the 
press, there was accidentally brought to his no- 
tice, a treatise by Br. Gunning (afterwards Bishop 
of Chichester), entitled, " the Paschal or Lenten 
Fast," which fills a quarto volume of between five 
and six hundred pages, published about the year 
1670. Its size however, together with the style in 
which it is written, would render it at the present 



PREFACE. IX. 

day useless to any but the theologian or the 
scholar. The author has also confined his atten- 
tion principally to one single point, owing to the 
circumstances under which he wrote. The work 
was prepared after the Restoration, when in con- 
sequence of the rule of the Puritans for so many 
years in England, the observance of Lent had 
been almost entirely discontinued. The object 
of Dr. Gunning is therefore, to revive in the 
minds of men a reverence for this ancient season 
by proving its Apostolical authority ; and the 
argument he presents is rendered most conclu- 
sive by extracts from every prominent writer 
who treats of the subject during the first seven 
centuries of the Church. It is evident however 
that this truth, if sustained by quotations from 
the first three centuries, is as well established as 
if the testimony of the remaining four was added. 
The present writer found' therefore, that |even if 
he had met with this treatise at an earlier period, 
from its being thus narrowed down to a single 
topic, it would have afforded him but little assist- 
ance. He mentions it however in this place, as 



X. PREFACE. 

it is the only work with which he is acquainted 
devoted to this subject, and because he was 
happy to find in its numerous quotations, a full 
confirmation of the statement he had made with 
regard to the origin of the Lenten Fast. 

It would of course have been easy, after once 
commencing the investigation, to have entered 
more deeply into the subject and expanded this 
volume to twice its present size by multiplying 
quotations from the early writers. In refraining 
from doing so, and in turning aside from many 
tempting paths of historical inquiry which opened 
before him, the writer (although acting contrary 
to the opinion of some of his friends), has been 
influenced by the consideration, that to have 
yielded, would entirely have changed the char- 
acter of the work. It is intended, not for the 
clergy (for they must be professionally familiar 
with all it contains), but for those among the 
laity whose daily avocations prevent them from 
searching the early records of the Church, and 
to whom information conveyed in this form is 
sometimes acceptable and useful. The object 



PREFACE. XI. 

has therefore been, to quote from the ancient 
Fathers, merely enough to sustain and illustrate 
the different points brought forward. 

It was for a similar reason that advantage was 
taken of the subject of Easter Even, to introduce 
a discussion of the Intermediate state. Those 
arguments we already have, able as they are, 
seem rather too controversial and theological in 
their character to be adapted to general readers. 
An attempt has therefore been made, to present 
this important subject in a more simple and 
popular form. Perhaps exception may be taken 
by some, to the adoption of Bishop Horsley's 
rendering of 1 Peter, iii. 19, 20. If so, the 
writer can only say, that some years ago he him- 
self thought differently, but after frequently stu- 
dying this difficult point with all the help he 
could derive from the learned labors of others, 
he was finally obliged to settle down upon this 
interpretation, as giving the most natural expla- 
nation fof the passage. It is the one adopted 
by Dr. Bloomfield and other eminent Biblical 
critics of the day. If, however, this passage 



Xll. PREFACE. 

should be entirely withdrawn from the argument, 
the loss would not materially weaken it. There 
is, even without it, abundant Scripture evidence 
to prove the doctrine. 

In conclusion then the writer would say, that 
it is with unfeigned diffidence he commits this 
little volume to the press. Occupied with the 
engrossing cares of a parish, he has been obliged 
to prepare these pages almost entirely after the 
regular duties of the day were over, at night, 
and in times redeemed from sleep. Yet while 
engaged in the work, he has felt that such silent 
hours, when the noise and din of the busy city 
around had subsided into quietness, seemed an 
appropriate season in which to turn over those 
writings, bequeathed to us by the ages of a dim 
antiquity, and which we may well style — in 
Milton's eloquent language — " the precious life- 
blood of so many master spirits, embalmed and 
treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.^ 
Their words, coming down through the mist and 
haziness of fifteen centuries, appeared to be gift- 
ed with a more touching emphasis when read in 



PREFACE. xiil- 

that still and solemn time, while the outward 
world, wrapped in slumber, gave no token of 
existence. To him therefore this labor has al- 
ready brought its own reward. It has deepened 
his love and reverence for the Church at whose 
altars he is permitted to minister, and whose 
services he has here endeavored to illustrate. It 
has taught him to realize more fully than ever 
before, the beauty of her ancient ritual, in which 
the solemnities of religion are performed — to 
use the words of Edmund Burke — "with modest 
splendor, with unassuming state, with mild ma- 
jesty, and sober pomp.'" 

If then the perusal of this little work should 
strengthen these feelings in the mind of any mem- 
ber of our Holy Apostolic Church, or awaken 
within one single soul which in uncertainty is 
" sounding on its dim and perilous way," the 
wish to turn to her as an Ark of safety, the 
writer will be most richly recompensed for all 
that he has done. If it can not thus aid the cause 
of truth and holiness, let it be like " the arrow 
shot into the air, which strikes no mark, creates 



XIV. PREFACE. 

no noise, leaves no track behind it, and is disco- 
vered after a little space, lying idly on the 
ground." But he hopes that this humble effort 
will not prove entirely in vain, and sends it forth 
therefore with the earnest prayer, that in some 
way it may be permitted to advance the glory oi 
that Lord, whose blessed Passion the Church 
would solemnly commemorate on earth, while in 
Heaven a remembrance . of its benefits will 
through all eternity furnish the theme for her 
noblest, loftiest anthem. 

Ash Wednesday, mdcccxliii. 



taints. 



The object of the Primitive Church, in instituting the 

Holy Season of Lent, 17 

The Proper Observance of Lent, . . . . 61 

The Week-Day PTayers, 101 

Good Friday, ........ 137 

Easter Even, 165 



O LORD, WHO FOR OUR SAKE DIDST FAST FORTY 
DAYS AND FORTY NIGHTS; GIVE US GRACE TO 
USE SUCH ABSTINENCE, THAT OUR FLESH BEING 
SUBDUED TO THE SPIRIT, WE MAY EVER OBEY 
THY GODLY MOTIONS IN RIGHTEOUSNESS AND 
TRUE HOLINESS, TO THY HONOR AND GLORY, 
WHO LIVEST AND REIGNEST WITH THE FATHER 
AND THE HOLY GHOST, ONE GOD, WORLD WITH- 
OUT END. 

AMEN. 

Colled for the First Sunday in Lent. 



§|e 6l)jd at % Jrimiiito Cjpt| in 
Instittttmg tire fwlg &mim at f ent 



Welcome, dear feast of Lent! who loves not thee, 
He loves not temperance, or authority, 

But is composed of passion. 
The Scriptures bid us fast; the Church says now; 
Give to thy mother, what thou wouldst allow 

To every corporation. 

" The Churchy by Herbert. 



I. 



Object of iiie ^hlriiiibe 6Snti*ei? if) fasflfi|fii|g 
f Sr>e ifolij Seqsori of JLeoi. 



At length the changing months have brought 
us to another division of our ecclesiastical year. 
We have again entered on that solemn season, 
in which the Church commands her children to 
4C turn unto the Lord with all their hearts, and 
w r ith fasting, and with weeping, and with mourn- 
ing, " a — " worthily lamenting their sins, and 
acknowledging their wretchedness, that they 
may obtain of Him who is the God of all 
mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness, through 

#, Passage appointed for the Epistle for Ash- 
Wednesday. 



20 THE LENTEN FAST. 

Jesus Christ, their Lord." 6 Her services now 
give utterance to the language of sorrow and 
abasement, as we prepare for the solemn com 
memoration of our Lord's agony and death. It 
is interestsng therefore to look back to the re- 
cords of the early Church in her holiest day, 
that as we see the origin of this season, and the 
object for which it was appointed, we may be 
enabled [to decide, whether we are so observing 
it, that it shall answer for us its high and im- 
portant purposes. 

The fast of Lent ( a Saxon word, signifying 
the Spring) is of forty days continuance, during 
the six weeks which precede Easter. As how- 
ever the Sundays are Festivals, and must 
therefore be excepted, only thirty-six days are 
left. To make up this deficiency, four days are 
added at the beginning, commencing with Ash- 
Wednesday, which derives its name from the 
ashes which in the ancient Church were at this 
time thrown upon the penitents , whose sins had 
debarred them from a participation in her servi- 

b. Collect for Ash-Wednesday. 

c. It is uncertain by whom this addition was 
made. Most writers however ascribe it to Gregory 
the Great (see Bingham's Orig. Eccles. lib. xxi., ch. 
1, section 5). 



OBJECT OF ITS INSTITUTION. 21 

ces. " On the first day of Lent," says Gratian, 
in describing this ceremony, " the penitents were 
to present themselves before the Bishop, clothed 
with sack-cloth, with naked feet, and eyes turned 
to the ground ; and this was to be done in the 
presence of the principal of the Clergy of the 
Diocese, who were to judge of the sincerity of 
their repentance. These introduced them into 
the Church, where the Bishop, all in tears, and 
the rest of the Clergy, repeated the seven peni- 
tential psalms. Then, rising from prayers, they 
threw ashes upon them, and covered their heads 
with sack-cloth; and then with mournful sighs 
declared to them, that as Adam was thrown out 
of Paradise, so they must be thrown out of the 
Church. Then the Bishop commanded the 
officers to turn them from the Church doors." ^ 
Severe indeed this discipline may seem ; yet 
in an age when the minds of men were reached 
only by striking appeals to the outward senses, 
we can not tell how much these ceremonies 
may have availed to keep alive the purity of 
the Church, and to impress upon the care- 
less multitude, the value of admission to her 
services. 

d. Wheatly on Common Prayer, p. 233, 



22 THE LENTEN FAST. 

An allusion to this ancient form is still pre- 
served in the " Commination, or denouncing of 
God's anger and judgment against sinners, r 
which in the service of the Church of England 
is commanded " to be used on the first day of 
Lent." After Litany the Priest is directed to 
say: 

" Brethren, in the Primitive Church there was 
a godly discipline, that, at the beginning of 
Lent, such persons as stood convicted of notori- 
ous sin were put to open penance, and punished 
in this world, that their souls might be saved in 
the day of the Lord; and that others, admon- 
ished by their example, might be the more afraid 
to offend. 

Instead whereof (until the said discipline may 
be restored again, which is much to be wished), 
it is thought good, that at this time (in the pre- 
sence of you all) should be read the general 
sentences of God's cursing against impenitent 
sinners, gathered out of the seven and twentieth 
chapter of Deuteronomy and other places of 
Scripture ; and that ye shall answer to every 
sentence, Amen ; To the intent that, being ad- 
monished of the great indignation of God against 
sinners, ye may the rather be moved to earnest 
and true repentance ; and may walk more wari- 



OBJECT OF ITS INSTITUTION. 23 

ly in these dangerous days ; fleeing from such 
vices, for which ye affirm with your own mouths, 
the curse of God to be due." 

Then follow the anathemas, to which the peo- 
ple respond. This form has been omitted in the 
Liturgy of the Church in America, with the 
exception of the three concluding prayers, 
which on Ash- Wednesday are directed " to be 
said immediately before the general thanks- 
giving." 

All record of the precise time in which this 
season first originated, is lost in the dim obscu- 
rity of the early ages of the Church. We may 
therefore speak of its services, in the words with 
which the ancient tragic poet represents Anti- 
gone as defending those sacred precepts of her 
faith, which had come down upon the traditions 
of a remote antiquity: 

05 yap ri vuv ys xa-^psg dXk' asi itors 
Xv\ ravra xovSeig oiSsv £% orou (potv7j. e 

The Lenten Fast is however frequently referred 
to by writers of primitive days as an established 

e Not now, nor yesterday, but always thus 
These have endured, their ancient source unknown. 

Soph. Antigone, 462. 



24 THE LENTEN FAST. 

and well known custom, which had been sanc- 
tioned by Apostolical authority. The probability 
is, that even from the first — from the time in 
which " the Bridegroom was taken away " — His 
followers thus in sorrow kept the anniversary 
of His Passion, although the duration of this sea- 
son, and the rules by which its observance was 
regulated, may not have been definitely settled 
until the age immediately succeeding that of the 
Apostles. Philo, who was cotemporary with 
the early disciples, and is even said " to have 
had familiar conversation with Peter at Rome, 
whilst he was proclaiming the Gospel to the 
inhabitants of that city, ,<5/ refers to this season 
in his description of the Christians of Alexandria, 
who were converted by St. Mark. " This au- 
thor," — says Eusebius, in his history composed 
about A. D 324 — "has accurately described and 
stated in his writings, the exercises performed 
by them, " (i. e. the Christians of Alexandria in 
the days of St. Mark), " which are still in vogue 
among us at the present day, and especially 
at the festival of our Savior's passion, which we 
are accustomed to pass in fasting and watching, 
and in the study of the divine word. These 

/. Eusebius' Eccles. Hist., liber ii. } chap. 17, p. 66. 



OBJECT OF ITS INSTITUTION. 25 

are the same customs that are observed by us 
alone at the present day, particularly the vigils 
of the Great Festival" meaning by this the Pas- 
sion week, called by the Greek Fathers the 
Great Week. 

It is also mentioned incidentally by Ireneeus, 
who lived but ninety years after the death of 
St. John, and was trained up under the martyr 
Polycarp, who had himself been a disciple of 
that last surviving Apostle. When alluding to 
a difference of opinion with regard to the time 
in which it should be kept, he shows that the 
custom itself was ancient, even in his day. His 
words are: " This diversity existing among those 
that observe it, is not a matter that has just 
sprung up in our time, but long ago, among 
those before us. ,Vi 

Tertullian too, who lived within one hundred 
years of the Apostle St. John's departure, has 
unwittingly as it were, recorded his testimony to 
the general belief of the Church in the Aposto- 
lical Authority of this season. Having erred 
from the faith, and embraced the heresy of the 
Montanists, he found the voice of the Church 

g. Eusebius' Eccles. Hist. lib. ii, chap. 17 p. 68. 

h. Ibid, lib. v. chap. 24, p. 210. 
3 



26 THE LENTEN FAST. 

against him, when he endeavored to introduce 
the new fasts which Montanus had commanded. 
Thus therefore he argues against her authority, 
in defence of his party. "They" (i. e. the Ca- 
tholic Christians) " accuse us that we observe 
fasts of our own, peculiar to ourselves. They 
object therefore unto us novelty, and prescribe 
against the unlawfulness of that, saying, it is 
either to be judged Heresy, if presuming as men, 
we so dogmatize, or we are to be pronounced 
false prophets, if we inculcate these fasts, as 
from the Spirit'; whilst on either hand we hear 
them denounce an anathema against us. For 
as to what pertains to fast, they argue, that there 
are certain days constituted by God They sure- 
ly think, that in the Gospel those days are de- 
termined for facts, in which the Bridegroom was 
taken away, and that those days only are now 
the legitimate days of Christian fasts, all legal 
and prophetical old observances being antiquated 
or abolished. Therefore as to other fasting, it is 
to be indifferent, according to every man's occa- 
sions and causes, at his own judgment, not of 
command. " (That is, as Montanus inculcated 
the necessity of his fast, by pretended command 
from God.) "And that thus the Apostles observed 
the rule of fasting, imposing no other yoke of 



OBJECT OF ITS INSTITUTION. 27 

certain or set fasts to be kept of all in common. 
And ye prescribe against us, that the solemn 
times for this matter, are to be believed already 
constituted in the Scriptures, or in the tradition 
of our Elders, and that no further observance 
is to be superadded, for the unlawfulness of in- 
novation. "* 

The first Christian Emperor, Constantine, im- 
mediately after the meeting of the earliest general 
council of the Church — that held at Nice, A. D. 
325 — and which was composed, to use his own 
words, " of all the Bishops, or the greater part 
of them at least, assembled together," wrote 
a letter to all the Churches, on the necessity of 
observing Easter upon the same day. His argu- 
ment is, that unless this uniformity exists, some 
will be rejoicing in that Festival, while others 
are still mourning in the fasts which precede it. 
"It is fit therefore " — he says — "that we should 
perpetuate to all future ages the celebration of 
this rite, which we have kept from the first day of 
eur Lord's passion even to the present times. *. 

. . . . For the Savior has bequeathed ta 
us one festal day of our liberation, that is, the: 
day of His most holy passion; and it was His 

t. Tertullian De Jejuniis, chap. 1, 2, 13, 



28 THE LENTEN FAST. 

pleasure that His Church should be one ; the 
members of which, although dispersed in many 
and various places, are yet nourished by the 
same Spirit, that is, by the will of God. Let 
the sagacity of your holiness only consider how 
painful and indecorous it must be, for some to be 
experiencing the rigors of abstinence, and others 
to be unbending their minds in convivial enjoy- 
ments on the same day; and after Easter, for 
some to be indulging in feasting and relaxation 
while others are occupied in the observance of 
the prescribed fasts " j 

To give a single reference more — and they 
might be multiplied to a great extent — this 
season is mentioned in the Apostolic Canons, a 
code of laws which certainly dates its authority 
from a very early age. "If" — says the 61st 
Canon — " any Bishop, Priest, Deacon, Reader, 
or Singer, do not keep the holy fast of Lent, 
forty days before Easter, or the Wednesdays and 
Fridays, let him be deposed, if he be not hind- 
ered by some bodily infirmity ; but if he be a lay- 
man, let him be suspended from communion. "* 

j. Euseb. De Vit. Constantin. lib. iii., c. 17, 18. 
Socrates, lib. i, chapter 6. Theodoret, lib. i, ch. 10. 

k. Patres Apos. CoteL vol. 1, p. 451, edit. 1724. 



OBJECT OF ITS INSTITUTION. 29 

Thus, we perceive, that this custom took not 
its rise amidst the corruptions of the Dark Ages, 
but began in times of light and holiness. We 
received it not from the Romish Church, when it 
had fallen from ancient purity, but it comes 
down to us from Primitive days. It was sanc- 
tioned by Apostolical authority, or certainly at 

These Canons have usually passed by the name of 
St. Clement. Bellarmin, Baronius, and others, assert 
them to be the genuine Canons of the Apostles. 
Cotelerius however observes, that the internal evi- 
dence is against this view of their antiquity (Jad. 
de Canon Apos., vol. 1, p. 429). Hincmar, De 
Marca, and Beveridge give, what is the most proba- 
ble account, that they were framed by the Bishops 
who were the disciples of the Apostles, in the end 
of the 2d and beginning of the 3d centuries. See 
Beveridge Jud. de Can. Apos. in Cot el. , vol. 1, p. 
436. See also, Lardner's Woi'ks, vol. 4, p. 354. 
Jortin's Rem. on Eccles. Hist., vol. 1, p. 278; Cave's 
Hist. Lit. vol. 1, p. 29. Even Mosheim acknow- 
ledges that " they exhibit the principles of discipline 
received in the Greek and Oriental Churches, in the 
2d and 3d centuries" (Eccles. Hist., vol. 1, p. 90, 
224). We give these authorities merely to show, 
that in the lowest view taken of these Canons, they 
are good evidence of the practice of the Church at a 
very early age. 



30 THE LENTEN FAST. 

least by those who lived before the example and 
instruction of Apostles had been in any respect 
forgotten. The early Christians, as we have al- 
ready seen stated by Tertullian, considered our 
Divine Master as referring to the observance of 
some such season, when he said : " Can the 
children of the bride-chamber mourn, as long as 
the bridegroom is with them? but the days will 
come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from 
them, and then shall they fast." At first, the time 
of its observance varied in different Churches 
and among different individuals, although all 
agreed in the necessity of thus commemorating, 
in some way, their Lord's sufferings and death. 
At length, however, its duration was fixed at 
forty days, which has since, through all the inter- 
vening centuries, continued to be the uniform 
custom of the Church. 2 The number forty seems 

Z. The question as to the length of Lent, at its 
first institution, is one which has caused much dis- 
cussion among learned men. The Greeks called this 
season Tstftfapaxotf^, and the Latins Quadragesima, 
both of which words denote forty. But the inquiry 
has been, whether this applied to days or hours ? By 
some, it was argued, that it always had been forty 
days. By others, that it at first extended only 
through forty hours, which were of entire absti- 



OBJECT OF ITS INSTITUTION. 31 

very anciently to have been appropriated to sea- 
sons of repentance and fasting. " This quadra- 
gesimal number " — says St. Ambrose, in his 36th 
sermon — is not constituted of men, but conse- 
crated from God." For this term of years were 
the children of Israel disciplined in the wilderness, 
to prepare them for the promised land. For 
forty days did Moses fast on the Mount — Elijah 
in the Wilderness — and the Ninevites, when 
they would avert the judgments prophesied by 
Jonah. It was this length of time that our 
Lord himself was pleased to fast, during His 
temptation in the desert, and from His exam- 
ple was this period probably fixed, " that, " — as 
St. Augustine says — " we might, as far as we 
are fable, conform to Christ's practice, and suffer 
with [Him here, that we may reign with Him 
hereafter." 

And we may learn too from a single passage 

nence, beginning about 12 on Friday, (the time of 
our Savior's falling under the power of death), and 
continuing until Sunday morning, the time of His 
resurrection, and that afterwards it was extended by 
the Church to the same number of days. The reader 
will find this subject discussed in Bingham's Orig. 
Eccles., lib. xxi,, chap. 1. 



32 THE LENTEN FAST. 

in St. Basil's Second Homily on Fasting, how 
universal throughout the world was the attention 
of the early Christians to this solemn portion of 
the Ecclesiastical year. "In this time of Lent, 
there is no island nor continent of the earth, no 
city, nor nation, no extreme corner of the world, 
where the Edict of this Fast of Lent was not 
heard. Yea, whatsoever armies, merchants, tra- 
velers, or mariners are abroad, this fast comes 
unto them all, and with joy they all receive it. 
This composes every house, every city, and 
every people, in sobriety and quiet and concord. 
This stills the late clamors, contentions, and 
noises of the town. Let no one, therefore, 
exempt himself from the number of the fasters, 
in which every degree, nation and age almost 
of men, and all of all dignities whatsoever are 
engaged." 

How safe then are we, in yielding our ready 
obedience to this regulation of the Church! 
How much better, to tread in the footsteps of 
martyrs and confessors of former times, than to 
set at naught all the customs which they found 
conducive to their spiritual benefit, and to deter- 
mine — despising the wisdom of the past, and 
the recorded experience of eighteen centuries — 



OBJECT OF ITS INSTITUTION. 33 

to " walk every one in the ways of his own 
heart ! v It becomes therefore an enquiry of in- 
terest to us, gleaning from those ancient writers 
whose works have survived the ravages of bar- 
barism and the waste of time, to investigate the 
reasons which induced the Church in Primitive 
days to institute this Holy Season, and then 
through all succeeding ages, to insist so strongly 
upon its observance. 

The first reason was — that having the 

SUBJECT OF THEIR Lord's SUFFERINGS THUS 
BROUGHT MORE VIVIDLY BEFORE THEM, THEY 
MIGHT BE INDUCED TO MOURN HIS LOSS WITH 
GREATER EARNESTNESS. 

There is a tendency in the human mind, to 
disregard a duty, to the performance of which 
no specific time is allotted. Thus, if the whole 
year were given us, during which we were com- 
manded at some period to meditate seriously on 
our Lord's death, we should probably either 
neglect the obligation entirely, or, at best, fulfill 
it but imperfectly. It is for this reason that the 
early Church set apart definite times, for con- 
sidering in order each of the grand doctrines 
of the Christian faith, as the Ecclesiastical year 
rolls round. And in this practice we now con- 
tinue. 



34 THE LENTEN FAST. 

" Yes, if the intensities of hope and fear 
Attract us still, and passionate exercise 
Of lofty thoughts, the way before us lies 
Distinct with signs — through which in fixed 

career, 
As through a zodiac, moves the ritual year 
Of England's Church — stupendous mysteries ! 
Which, whoso travels in her bosom, eyes 
As he approaches them, with solemn cheer." 

Beautiful indeed is that arrangement of her 
services, which, as the months go by, brings in 
succession befoie her Children, each scene in 
their Lord's eventful life, and each cardinal truth 
which he taught ! We celebrate with joy and 
gratitude the Festival of His Nativity, and after- 
wards follow Him on, step by step, through all 
the glories and the trials of His earthly pilgrim- 
age, until amid the solemnities of Passion Week 
we mourn His agonies and death. Then come 
in meet succession, the other Festivals — that of 
Easter, when he triumphed over the grave — of 
the Ascension, when He returned to " the glory 
which he had with the Father before the world 
was " — and of Whitsunday, when His promise 
was fulfilled, that the Comforter should be given, 
and His Apostles, by the visible descent of the 

m* Wordsworth's JSccUs. Sonnets, XV, 



OBJECT OF ITS INSTITUTION. 35 

Holy Ghost, were prepared to be " lights to 
lighten the world.' 1 Thus it is, that in a far 
higher and nobler sense than the Poet ever 
dreamed in his loftiest imaginings — 

" The rolling year is full of Him.' 5 

Acting then on this principle, and endeavoring 
to render the views of her members clear and 
distinct, how naturally did it happen, that one of 
the first seasons of solemn remembrance insti- 
tuted by the Primitive Church, was that which 
commemorated her Lord's sufferings and death, 
while her children were summoned in an especial 
manner to lament those sins which brought Him 
to the Cross \ n u The days had come, when the 

n. " It seemed good to the Church to fix a stated 
time, in which men might enter upon the great work 
of their repentance. And what time could have 
been selected with greater propriety than this ' Lent- 
en ' or Spring Season, when universal nature, awak- 
ening from her wintry sleep, and coming out of a 
state of deformity, and a course of penance, imposed 
for the transgression of man, her Lord and Master, 
is about to rise from the dead; and, putting on her 
garments of glory and beauty, to giye us a kind of 
prelude to the renovation of all things ? So ttmt the 



36 THE LENTEN FAST. 

Bridegroom was taken from them, and therefore 
did they fast." The memory of His love and 
kindness was still freshly imprinted on their 
hearts. The history of all that He endured, came 
not to them, as it too often does to us, like " a 
thrice-told tale," to which we have listened so 
often that it has lost its interest. The glad news 
of the Gospel, bursting upon them in an age of 
moral degradation and darkness, had not yet 
ceased to thrill their hearts with joy. They had 
either " known Christ after the flesh,*" when in 
person he mingled with His fellow men, or at 
least those Apostles who sat at his sacred feet, 
forming his little household as He wandered 
through Judea ; and with eager ears they list- 
ened to the recital from their lips, of all that they 
had heard and witnessed. Probably too, the 
tradition of many a deed which now is lost for- 
ever, came down to them, and contributed to 
heighten their estimation of that Perfect Cha- 
racter, from whom they were separated by but 

whole creation most harmoniously accompanieth the 
voice of the Church, as that sweetly accordeth to the 
call of the Apostle, 'Awake, thou that sleepest, and 
arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee 
light,' " — Bishop Home, 



OBJECT OF ITS INSTITUTION. 37 

a short interval of time. How well then could 
they meditate upon His bitter agonies endured 
for them! How forcibly did they feel themselves 
called, once at least in each year, in an especial 
manner to chasten their souls by prayer and fast- 
ing, that they might thus be compelled to realize 
the nature of His earthly existence, who was 
truly " a man of sorrows and acquainted with 
grief!" 

But if this was necessary for them, how much 
more so is it for us ! Educated from the earliest 
dawn of reason, to hear the story of redeeming 
love, and the fearful manner in which our salva- 
tion was wrought out, these themes become to 
us, as we before remarked, subjects too well 
known to excite attention. It is indispensable, 
therefore, that the mind should be directed and 
fixed upon them. And how admirably is this 
done by the appointed service of the church ! 
Week after week, we are led in her prayers and 

o. It is strange that the only one of these tradi- 
tionary sayings of our Lord, which was afterwards 
recorded by an inspired writer, is intended to incul- 
cate a truth, the most difficult for human nature to 
learn. St. Paul says — " Remember the words of 
the Lord Jesus, how he said: It is more blessed to 
give than to receive." — Acts xx. 35. 



38 THE LENTEN FAST. 

lessons to contemplate these solemn mysteries, 
until when Passion Week arrives, the recital is 
each day repeated. We witness the bitter ago- 
ny of the Son of God, in the garden of Gethse- 
mane. We stand by the patient sufferer's side, 
when arraigned in the hall of Pilate. We fol- 
low Him to Calvary, as he painfully toils along 
amidst the scoffs and jeers of an infuriated mob. 
We gather around the Cross, and hear that last 
expiring cry, which shrouded the heavens in 
darkness, and startled even the sleeping dead in 
their tombs. Hard, indeed, must be that heart — 
yes, utterly " past feeling " — which, amid scenes 
like these, is not awakened to gratitude and de- 
votion. He can be n'o true follower of the Lord, 
whose spirit does not " burn within him " as he 
thus contemplates the mighty price at which his 
redemption was purchased, or whose resolution 
is not strengthened, to live for that Master who 
died a death of shame for him. 

Another reason with the Primitive Church for 
the institution of this season was, to aid her 

MEMBERS IN PRESERVING THE HIGH STANDARD OF 
CHRISTIAN CHARACTER IN ITS EARLY PURITY. 

For a time, the followers of our Lord were 
subjected to the most painful persecutions. The 
lonely valleys of Judea furnished no place of 



OBJECT OF ITS INSTITUTION. 39 

security to the Hebrew Christians, for even 
thither penetrated their bigoted enemies, ready, 
€l if they found any of that way, whether they 
were men or women, to bring them bound to 
Jerusalem. " And when the faith left its earliest 
dwelling place in " Holy Asia, ,,p and went forth 
to other lands, it found a world arrayed in hos- 
tility against it. The ancient, sensual Paganism, 
and the proud systems of a scoffing philosophy, 

p. jEschylus' Prom. Vinct. 415, ayva.gkdnxg. This 
is the happy epithet used by the first, and may we 
not say, the loftiest of the Greek tragic poets ? On 
this single point there is agreement between the 
Christian of every age, and the believer in that an- 
tique and poetical mythology which furnished its 
inspiration to the muse of Homer, and both called 
into being, and imparted its dark coloring to the 
solemn and intellectual drama of the Athenian stage. 
Both alike look back with reverence to that region 
which was the birth place of our race, the scene of 
its first revelations, and where "the Lord talked 
with man face to face." Even to this day, there is a 
tradition among the Arabs, that to the earliest places 
of human worship, there clings a guardian sanctity — 
that there the wild bird alights not and the wild 
beast may not wander — but the eye of God rests 
on them as hallowed spots. 



40 THE LENTEN FAST. 

united at once to crush that holy creed, which 
disclaimed all fellowship with them. The endur- 
ance of its adherents was tried by every expe- 
dient of cruelty their enemies could devise. 
Some died in agony at the stake. Some ascend- 
ed to their reward from the burning flames, while 
" their ashes flew, no marble tells us whither." 
Some, " butchered to make a Roman holiday,' 1 
poured out their blood on the sands of the amphi- 
theatre, welcoming even the wild beasts, whose 
fury released them from their sufferings. And 
the survivors felt, that they also were each hour 
in jeopardy of life, and might at any time be 
called in like manner to seal their profession. 
Yet these things only added a depth and fervor 
to their devotion. Like their Divine Master, 
they " were made perfect by sufferings." The 
timid and wavering, either refrained from uniting 
with them, or else soon apostatized from their 
profession. The true-hearted were therefore left 
alone, reduced indeed in numbers, yet "steadfast, 
immovable, " and holding themselves ready, if 
needs be, to win their crown by suffering the 
pains of martyrdom. 

" Every hour, 

They stood prepared to die, a people doomed 
To death; old men, and youth, and simple maids." 






OBJECT OF ITS INSTITUTION. 41 

The world looked coldly on them, even when 
it did not openly persecute, and had therefore 
nothing in it to enlist their affections. Life with 
them was one long Lenten period of abstinence 
and prayer, while they were continually chasten- 
ing their spirits, to make ready for that parting 
hour, which might suddenly overtake them. 

But when security came, and the world began 
to smile upon them, then was the time of peril. 
The faith which had been strengthening in the 
storm of persecution, drooped and withered in 
the sunshine of Imperial favor. The multitude 
insensibly declined from their Apostolic devotion, 
and thought too much of the cares and riches of 
a world they had vowed to renounce. Their 
affections began to cling to it, forgetting that here 
they were only strangers and pilgrims " having 
no continuing city." It was at this time proba- 
bly that this fast, commenced in an earlier age, 
was more accurately defined and inculcated by 
the regulations of the Church, that her members 
might be recalled from their secular cares to holy 
works, and thus by the necessity of a law, com- 
pelled to dedicate one tenth of the year, in a 
peculiar manner to their God. 3 Therefore it is, 

q. Cassian, [in Bingham Orig. Eccles. lib. xxi, 
ch. 1, sec. 10. ' 
4 



42 THE LENTEN FAST. 

that an ancient writer declares — " Whilst men 
are distracted about the cares of this life, their 
religious hearts must needs be defiled with the 
dust of this world ; and therefore it is provided 
by the great benefit of this Divine institution, that 
the purity of our minds might be repaired by the 
exercise of these forty days, in which we may re- 
deem the failings of other times, and do good 
works, and exercise ourselves in religious fast- 
ing."' 

But has this necessity in our day ceased? Is 
there now so great a deadness to the world, that 
we need not such a season, to recall us to our 
duty? Is not the very reverse true, and the dan- 
ger now ten-fold greater than it was in that early 
day? Since all around us have made a nominal 
profession of Christianity, the Church has been 
too much mingled with the world. The barrier 
between them has been somewhat broken down, 
and there is comparatively but little of the out- 
ward Cross to be borne. But the effect of this 
is, to authenticate low views of Christian duty — 
to render religion earthly — to withdraw all 
attention from self-denial — to cause us to forget 

r. Leo, Serm. iv., de Quadragesima, in Bingham, 
lib. xxi. 



OBJECT OF ITS INSTITUTION. 43 

our Master's lesson, that though in the world we 
are not of the world — and to induce those about 
us to suppose, that the " straight gate " has been 
widened, and the " narrow way'"' become broad. 
They look in vain for those exhibitions of a living 
faith which distinguished the early Christians, and 
are therefore tempted to believe, that the days of 
self-discipline are over, and an easier entrance 
found into God's holy kingdom. 

The very proofs too of Christian character — 
the marks by which we should ascertain our 
spiritual state — are in this age of novelties so 
perverted and mystified, that it is often difficult 
for an inquirer to decide, whether or not he has 
a right to those promises of the Gospel which 
are made to the contrite and believing. With 
some, every thing rests upon abstract notions of 
faith, as if the last Great Judgment would only 
be a trial of their orthodoxy. With others, all 
religion is resolved into a matter of mere feeling. 
Forgetting that the degree of excitement depends 
upon the power of the imagination, or the pecu- 
liar constitution of the mind, they are continually 
striving to elevate themselves to a greater intens- 
ity of emotion, and thus make this, intangible as 
it is, their test of religious character. The latter 
form of delusion indeed we may characterize as 



44 THE LENTEN FAST. 

being in an especial degree, the popular one of 
the day. This awakening of the sensibilities and 
of the imagination, is substituted in the place of 
that calm, settled, decided resolution to obey the 
will of our Master, which alone can be an effi- 
cient rule of conduct in this evil world. These 
unearthly paroxysms of devotion, which soon 
pass away and leave behind ihem no abiding 
holiness, are trusted to, instead of that " patient 
continuance in well doing," which alone can lead 
us on to " eternal life." 

How necessary is it then, that there should be 
times of reflection, when we may realize what 
are the true evidences of having passed from spi- 
ritual death, to the light and liberty of God's own 
children! And it is to the standard of pure reli- 
gion, that the Church at this time endeavors to 
recall us. A perpetual witness for the faith, her 
voice is heard " through the ages all along," pub- 
lishing truths of which an evil world would 
willingly lose sight, and pointing her members to 
the bright examples of those who, in earlier, purer 
days, "fought the good fight," and " inherited the 
promises*" From her we learn, that religion con- 
sists, not in talking much and eloquently on the 
subject — not alone in striving to feel spiritually — 
not even in being warm and earnest in aiding the 



OBJECT OF ITS INSTITUTION. 45 

progress of the Church. An individual may do 
all these things, and yet be only like " sounding 
brass or a tinkling cymbal." That faith of the 
heart by which we " believe unto righteousness," 
is no wavering impulse. It is a fixed, steadfast 
habit of the mind, shewn by our renouncing the 
spirit of the world — subduing our own evil tem- 
pers — living "soberly, righteously, and godly "— 
"crucifying the flesh, with the affections and 
lusts" — and acting in truth as the self-denying 
followers of that Master, of whom it is recorded, 
that He pleased not Himself." 

And while the Church thus defines the evi- 
dences of spiritual life, and declares the Christian 
conflict to be " an earnest, endless strife," 5 she at 
the same time most sternly rebukes the compro- 
mising spirit of the clay. She summons her child- 
ren to come out from a sinful and apostate world. 
She bids them not live as other men do, in ease 
and idleness, when so much is to be accomplished 
for their Lord. She inquires, how they can be 

y. " One only way to life ; 

One faith delivered once for all; [call; 

One holy band, endowed with Heaven's high 
One earnest, endless strife — 
This is the Church, th' Eternal framed of old." 

Lyra Apostolica. 



46 THE LENTEN FAST. 

" delicate on the earth," when they are called 
by their Master to " drink of the cup of which 
He drank," and to be conformed to Him alike 
in His sufferings and His life. And it is by the 
abstinence and self-mortification of this solemn 
season, that she strives to impress these lessons. 
If therefore they listen to her teaching, and tread 
this scene of mists and shadows beneath their 
feet, each returning year will endow them 
with added strength, while they travel onward 
to that world of light, to which she points them 
as their eternal home. They will learn to despise 
the fleeting and the perishable, and even while 
still imprisoned in this tabernacle of clay their 
spirits will yearn for communion with the Endu- 
ring and the Infinite. 

Another reason for the institution of this sea- 
son in Primitive times was — with reference 

TO TWO CLASSES OF INDIVIDUALS WHO WERE 
THEN TO BE RECEIVED INTO THE CHURCH. 

One class was that of the Catechumens, who 
had been preparing for Baptism. As Easter was 
the fixed and solemn time for their admission to 
this rite/ the Church fasted with them as a pre- 

t. The most celebrated time for Baptism in the 
early Church, was Easter ; next to that, Pentecost, 
or Whitsuntide, and then Epiphany. The Church 



OBJECT OF ITS INSTITUTION. 47 

paratory step to their commencing a religious 
life. Thus Justin Martyr in the second century 
declares— " As many as are persuaded, and do 
believe that the things taught and said by us are 
true and promise to live accordingly, they are 
instructed to pray, and with fasting to beg of 
God remission of sins, we praying and fasting 
together with them. Then they are brought to 
the place where water is, and are regenerated af- 
ter the same manner of regeneration as we were 
regenerated before them." w In the same manner, 
Cyril of Jerusalem thus addresses the Catechu- 
mens : " The present season is a season of con- 
fession ; all worldly cares are to be laid aside, for 
you strive for your souls. You that have been 
busy about the things of the world, and troubled 
in vain for many years, will ye not bestow forty 
days in prayer for the salvation of your souls?" 
And again, he says — " there is a large time 
given you. You have the Penance before you of 

oowever still allowed her members the liberty to 
anticipate these times, if either Catechumens were 
great proficients, or in danger of death by disease or 
any sudden accident. — Bingham's Orig. Eccles. lib. 
xi, ch. 6, sec. 7. 

u. Bingham, lib, xxi, ch. 1, sec. 12. 



48 THE LENTEN FAST. 

forty days, sufficient space and opportunity to 
put off the old garments, and put on the new." v 
Upon this account all candidates for baptism 
were obliged to give in their names, forty days 
before the administration of the rite. 

Such was the interest the early Christians took 
in those who were to be united with them in the 
fellowship of the Church. They were jealous for 
the honor of their Master, and the purity of the 
faith. They were earnest that those about to 
avow His name should not walk unworthy of 
their calling, and therefore through all this season, 
they prayed and fasted with them. They felt a 
zeal for the whole body of the faithful, and an 
ardent desire that no stain should rest upon the 
religion they professed. They realized, that they 
were a little band, surrounded by a world which 
loved them not. Beyond their own little circle 
they could expect no sympathy, but lived isolated 
and apart from those among whom they dwelt. 
When therefore, as was always done by the 
Apostles, they were addressed as " brethren " a 
chord was struck, which vibrated through every 
heart. They knew that they were "heirs to- 
gether of the grace of life." 

Bingham, lib. xxi, ch. 1, sec. 12. 



OBJECT OF ITS INSTITUTION. 49 

May we not therefore take " shame and con- 
fusion of face" to ourselves, because we are so 
deficient in this feeling ! In this age of cold and 
selfish worldliness, we have almost ceased to re- 
gard " the communion of Saints " as a reality. 
And yet, though we think not of it, the tie is a 
most holy one, which unites those who are dis- 
ciples of the same faith. They are looking up- 
ward to a common Master, invisible indeed to the 
eye of sense, yet whose presence they every 
where recognize in the occurrences of daily life. 
Combatants in the same warfare, they are ex- 
posed to equal dangers — are contending against 
common enemies — share in the same hopes and 
fears — and when the hour of victory comes, ex- 
pect to join in one triumph, and rejoice in the 
same bright reward. It is no imaginary bond> 
therefore, which unites in fellowship, the faithful 
in Christ Jesus. It is a community of interest in 
all that men should count most valuable. They 
are members of one great fraternity, which 
gathers out its chosen ones from every genera- 
tion, and includes the just who have already 
passed into the promised Canaan, and those who 
are still toiling onward in the wilderness. In the 
beautiful words of one of our own hymns — 
5 



50 THE LENTEN FAST. 

" Angels, and living saints, and dead, 

But one communion make ; 
All join in Christ, their vital Head, 

And of His love partake." 

And the reason why this great truth is now so 
little appreciated, is obvious. It is because he- 
resy and schism have entered " the consecrated 
host of God's elect," rending it asunder, tear- 
ing in pieces " the body of Christ, which is His 
Church," and arraying the followers of the same 
Lord against each other in hostile bands. Every 
strange form of error which the intellect of fallen 
man could engraft upon the Gospel, is rife around 
us, until the pure Faith stands like Milton's per- 
sonification of Chastity, amidst •' the rout of 
monsters " who composed the crew of Comus. 
The Church herself is as a beleaguered city, and 
the countless parties by which she is encircled, 
"have pitched their tents all about the holy 
camp, like the mixed multitude that followed the 
true Israel of God from out the land of Egypt." 
And the result is, that men become accustomed 
to the sight of discord and the cry of disunion. 
They even forget the " fellowship " which should 
subsist between those who " continue steadfastly 
in the Apostles' doctrine, and in breaking of 
bread, and in prayers." Party names fill the 



OBJECT OF ITS INSTITUTION. 51 

earth, and individuals withdraw themselves into 
their own little circles, and send forth no sym- 
pathy and love to the millions who are without, 
though their faith may be the same. But how 
different is this from the feeling which prevailed 
in ancient times ! Then, when the fold of Christ 
was one, and her prayers in every place the 
same, her members, wherever they were in the 
earth, felt that they were among brethren, and 
recognized in every lineament the same Church 
which had existed " in their father's days, and in 
the old time before them." Then, in the remote 
East, and in Northern Africa, as well as in West- 
ern Europe, they were all united in "one Lord, 
one faith, one baptism." 

Touching indeed is the illustration given of this 
truth, by the feelings awakened in the mind of a 
celebrated Venetian traveler of those days, when 
a wanderer from his home, in one of the cities of 
distant England, he met a funeral train ! " There 
was nothing new, or strange, or singular, about 
the burial procession, particularly calculated to 
excite the attention of Marco Polo. The De Pro- 
fundis of the stoled priest spake the universal 
language, adopted by the most sublime of human 
compositions, the Liturgy of Western Christen- 
dom. Yet, though no objects appeared which 



52 THE LENTEN FAST. 

could awaken any lively curiosity in the traveler, 
there was much in their familiarity to excite the 
sympathy of the wanderer in a foreign land. 
With an altered tone he said to the friar, ' Sad- 
dened is the spirit of the pilgrim, by the dying 
twilight and the plaining Vesper bell. But he 
who braves every danger for himself, may feel 
his heart sink within him when the pageant of 
triumphant death brings to his mind the thought, 
that those from whom, as he weened, he parted 
for a little time only, may have been already 
borne to the sepulchre. Yet there is also a great 
and enduring comfort to the traveler in Christ- 
endom. However uncouth may be the speech 
of the races amongst whom the pilgrim sojourns, 
however diversified may be the customs of the 
regions which he visits, let him enter the portal 
of the Church, or hear, as I do now, the voice of 
the minister of the Gospel, and he is present with 
his own, though Alps and oceans may sever them 
asunder. There is one spot where the pilgrim 
always finds his home. We are all one people 
when we come before the Altar of the Lord."™ 

How beautiful is this picture ! and how sad 
does it make the change which now we witness ! 

w. Sir Francis Palgrave's Merchant and Friar, p. 
138. 



OBJECT OF ITS INSTITUTION. 53 

What a dejection of spirit often comes over the 
Christian, as he is reminded of this subject in re- 
peating the Confession — " I believe in one Ca- 
tholic and Apostolic Church !" Is there not rea- 
son, then, at this Holy season, when the Univer- 
sal Church is every where, at the same time, 
prostrating herself before the Lord, that we 
should pray for a return of those golden days 
when the faithful were one in heart and name 1 
Yes — though oceans may roll between, and we 
never meet face to face on earth, we have still 
an interest in each one who is united with the 
Church, wherever he may be, for we are all 
"members one of another." Let us then peti- 
tion our Common Father, that He will grant us 
more of that spirit which distinguished the Chris- 
tian host in earlier and better days, until we re- 
alize, that He " has knit together his elect in one 
communion and fellowship, in the mystical body 
of his Son Christ our Lord."* 

The other class of persons, who were prepar- 
ing at this time to be received into the Church, 
were the Penitents, who had once been cut off 
for their sins, but after having completed their 
Canonical time of probation, during which they 
were excluded from her services, were generally 

x. Collect for All Saints Day, 



54 THE LENTEN FAST. 

absolved and readmitted at the time of the Easter 
Festival. Some of them for flagrant sins, had 
been kept under this penitential discipline for 
years, until by evident humility and earnestness, 
they had given the fullest proof of their contrition 
and amendments It is to this that an ancient 
Bishop refers, when he says — " The Anniversary 
solemnity of Easter, was not only the time of 
regenerating Catechumens, but of begetting those 
again to a lively hope, who had forfeited it by 
their sin, but were desirous to regain it by re- 
pentance and conversion from dead works, to 

y. The discipline was far from being nominal. It 
was often such as nothing but the deepest feelings of 
contrition could have induced them to bear. In some 
cases, they were obliged to appear in sackcloth, with 
ashes on their heads — the men to cut off their hair, 
and the women to go veiled, as a token of sorrow 
and mourning — to abstain from feasting, and even 
the innocent diversions of life — to practice abstinence, 
mortification and fasting, in private, as well as to 
observe the public fasts of the Church — to show 
their liberality to the poor in an eminent degree — 
and in some Churches to exercise their humility by 
taking upon themselves the office and care of burying 
the dead. See Bingham, lib. xviii, ch. 2, sec. 4. 



OBJECT OF ITS INSTITUTION. 55 

walk again in the paths of life."* Cyprian also 
in his Epistles, speaks of Easter as the great and 
solemn time of readmitting Penitents. 

These indeed were the days of rigid discipline 
in the Church, when the offender was obliged 
to make his confession and his repentance as open 
as his sin, that no stain might rest upon the 
purity of the faith. And in enforcing these rules, 
no immunity was granted to rank or power. 
Look, for example, at the case of the Emperor 
Theodosius. Having ordered a massacre by his 
troops at Thessalonica, in which several thousand 
lives were sacrificed, St. Ambrose, the Bishop of 
Milan, at once charged him with his guilt, and 
refused to hold intercourse with one thus stained 
with innocent blood. The doors of the Church 
were closed against the Master of the world, 
and he was commanded to bow to that authority 
which is above all earthly rule. The subordina- 
tion of the civil to the ecclesiastical power was 
clearly proclaimed in that emphatic sentence — 
" The Emperor is of the Church, and in the 
Church, but not above the Church." Having 
desired, even on the Festival of the Nativity, to 
attend its services, he was met at the entrance of 

z. Gregory Nyssen. (Bingham, lib. xxi, cli. 1, 
sec. 13.) 



56 THE LENTEN FAST. 

the sanctuary by the intrepid prelate, who boldly 
rebuked him for his want of humility, and ordered 
him not to pollute the temple with his presence 
until he had been absolved from his iniquity. 
Thus, for eight months, he w T as ignominiously 
excluded from those holy offices of the Church 
which were freely afforded to the meanest of his 
subjects — even to the beggar and the slave. 
Theodosius pleaded in his defence the example 
of David. " Since then you have imitated his 
offence" — replied the Bishop — "imitate also his 
penitence." At length, on his public humiliation, 
St. Ambrose consented to admit the Emperor, 
not into the Church itself, but into the outer porch, 
the place for the public penitents. There, pros- 
trate on the pavement, stripped of his imperial 
ornaments, beating his breast, and watering the 
ground with his tears, the master of the Roman 
Empire, and the legislator of the world, received 
his hard wrung absolution. Thus it was that 
the Church then stood forth, as the champion of 
the oppressed, and extended her penalties over 
the mightiest of the earths 

But how imposing must have been this peni- 
tential discipline, so rigorously enforced ! " The 
Church was not then divided into separate inde- 

a. Milman's History of Christianity s vol. ii, p. 230. 



OBJECT OF ITS INSTITUTION. 57 

pendent bodies, holding no communication with 
each other, which might enable an offender, 
when expelled from one to attach himself to 
another, and thus maintain, in defiance of his 
condemners, an outward union with Christ. He 
might as well have endeavored to escape the 
penalties of rebellion against the head of the 
Roman Empire by removing from one province 
to another. So spotless too was her innocence, 
so bright her holiness, that none dared question 
for a moment the justice of her decisions ; and 
her sentence, however rigorous it might be, was 
deemed to be ratified in Heaven ; to be cut off 
from her, was effectually to be cut off from 
Christ. Thus, both her blessings and her cen- 
sures were an outward expression, an earthly 
type, by which men were warned of what judg- 
ment was proceeding in Heaven upon their con- 
duct of life, and her slowness of forgiveness, and 
the fiery probation to which she submitted the 
penitent, were well calculated to dispel those 
hurtful notions which men now so generally en- 
tertain of the ease and the speed of the process 
of forgiveness of sins" 6 The multitude, often 
but partially reclaimed from barbarism, who 
could be restrained by no worldly motives, and 

b. Rectory of Valehead, p. 164. 



58 THE LENTEN FAST. 

over whom the civil authority of the land exerted 
bat little power when it came into conflict with 
their passions, were obliged to tremble as the 
awful denunciations of the Church fell upon 
their ears. To them there was a fearful yet 
salutary lesson taught, by the public shame of the 
penitent — his deep humiliation — the bitterness 
and intensity of his remorse. It was with these 
individuals, then, whose probation had been so 
severe, but who were now again to be received 
into the body of the faithful, that the Church at 
this season prayed and fasted? that their sins 
might be washed away, and the comfortable 
hope which once they had forfeited be again 
restored. 

And if the evil days on which we have fallen, 
prevent the Church in this age from enforcing 
with a wholesome severity, her primitive disci- 
pline, is there not double reason why her mem- 
bers should bewail their sins, and pray God not 
to visit upon them the recompense of their 
offences ? Should not their petition be — " Spare 
thy people, good Lord, and let not thine heritage 
be brought to confusion ?" And in harmony with 
such convictions, we find that all the services of 
Lent breathe an evident feeling of contrition — 
that we every where present ourselves in the at- 



OBJECT OF ITS INSTITUTION. 59 

titude of humility, and pray our merciful Father 
to grant us " perfect remission and forgiveness." 
Let us strive then to partake of the spirit of these 
petitions : and when we look around us and re- 
member how far, as a Church, we have wandered 
from the path of primitive holiness, how luke- 
warm is our devotion, and how feeble our faith 
compared with what it should be, we shall realize 
that there is reason for that deep and searching 
penitence which our Master seeks to kindle up 
within us, and the expression of which is heard 
so often in our Liturgy. 

These, then, are the reasons which induced 
the early Church to institute this Holy Season, 
thus exercising the power entrusted to her, " to 
decree rites or ceremonies." It is with her 
sanction that we are summoned to its observance. 
It is impressed upon us by the solemn voice 
which comes down from the years of a distant 
and dim antiquity. In these services many gene- 
rations have already joined, and thus gathered 
strength for the journey which lay before them. 
They have long since passed away, leaving to us 
not only their bright examples, but also the 

c. Article xx. Of the Authority of the Church — 
"The Church hath power to decree rites or cere- 
monies.' ' 



60 THE LENTEN FAST. 

record of their experience. We stand in their 
places. We are the honored guardians of all 
those rites and institutions which they in their 
day found useful in the Church, and then be- 
queathed to such as should come after them. 
Solemn indeed is the trust — may we never be- 
tray it ! May we always remember that we are 
" baptized for the dead " — inheriting their respon- 
sibilities — enjoying the fruits of their labors — 
and that we must commit this sacred heritage un- 
diminished to our successors. Let us never then 
be willing to give up these ancient services, 
which were used by the holy dead, whose me- 
mory we love, or to substitute in their place the 
novelties of an age u emulous of change." Let 
us be content to tread the path which still gleams 
brightly with the steps of those who for Christ's 
sake and the gospel's " counted not their lives 
dear unto themselves." Let us strive, as they 
did, against an unholy world — loving with a true 
devotion, the Church for which they died — and 
seeking to imbibe the spirit which reigns in her 
courts. And then, when " life's fitful fever " is 
over, we shall be admitted with the just whom 
we have followed on earth, to the Paradise of 
God — to u the general assembly and Church of 
the first-born, which are written in Heaven." 



ftjjt tytapx ©httrtatttt of f ^t. 



Nor wonder that the widow'd Church should sound 
Of sadness*, there are mourners Christ hath blest, 

Who watch with her their annual, weekly, round, 
And in obedience find the prormVd rest. 

The Cathedral, 



II. 

Hie 2fopti x Obgei^b^cc of JLeirf. 



We are told, that in one of the darkest pe- 
riods of Jerusalem's apostacy, and when her ruin 
by a powerful invader was just at hand, another 
reprieve was granted, and one more summons to 
repentance sent forth. " And in that day did the 
Lord God of Hosts call to weeping, and to 
mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with 
sackcloth ; and behold, joy and gladness." Thus 
it was, that her people scorned the prophet's 
message, and turned as usual to their worldly 
pleasures. But the decision of God upon their 
conduct, is thus given by Isaiah : " And it was 
revealed in mine ear by the Lord of Hosts, 
Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you 
till ye die, saith the Lord God of Hosts." a 

And thus, by the voice of His Church, is God 
at this season calling us also " to weeping and 

a. Isaiah xxii, 12, 13, 14. 



64 . THE LENTEN FAST. 

mourning." So comprehensive too is the sum- 
mons, that none who bear the Christian name 
can plead exemption. The command is — 
" Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call 
a solemn assembly, gather the people, sanctify 
the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the 
children, and those that suck at the breasts ; let 
the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the 
bride out of her closet ; let the priests, the minis- 
ters of the Lord, weep between the porch and 
the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O 
Lord, and give not thy heritage to reproach." 6 
In this way it is, we are directed, by chastening 
our spirits, to prepare to celebrate our Lord's 
solemn sacrifice — that mysterious passion and 
agony which the world can never fully compre- 
hend, and to the history of which it can only listen 
with an awful reverence. How then shall we 
keep this holy season ? How can we most fully 
enter into the spirit of its services — availing our- 
selves of these opportunities to approach our 
God — afflicting the soul now, that hereafter it 
may be saved forever? In answer to these 
inquiries, and that we may know how to carry 
out the design of the Church for our spiritual 

b, Scripture appointed for the Epistle for Ash- 
Wednesday. 



ITS PROPER OESERVANCE. 65 

benefit, let us look at some of the methods in 
which we may best observe this solemn period of 
our Ecclesiastical year. 

Abstinence from worldly Amusements, is 
one particular which most naturally occurs to us. 
In the early Church, not only was the attend- 
ance of her members on all public games and 
shows forbidden during the season of Lent, but 
the prohibition w as even extended to the celebra- 
tion of marriages, and the anniversaries of birth 
days, because these took place with feasting, and 
tokens of joy and pleasure, inappropriate to a 
season which should be devoted to deep humilia- 
tion and mourning. St. Chrysostom, in his Lent 
sermons, inveighs with his usual zeal, against any 
violation of these salutary rules. In the midst of 
his sharp invectives against those who had at- 
tended the Circus at this time, he says : " When 
I consider, how at one blast of the devil ye have 
forgotten all my daily admonitions and continued 
discourses, and run to that pomp of Satan, the 
horse race in the Circus, with what heart can 1 
think of preaching to you again, who have so 
soon let slip all that I said before ? This is what 
chiefly raises my grief, yea my anger and indig- 
nation, that together with my admonition ye have 

c, See Bingham's Orig. Ecdes. lib. xxi, ch. 1, 
sec, 21. 



66 THE LENTEN FAST. 

cast the reverence of this holy season of Lent 
out of your souls, and thrown yourselves into the 
nets of the devil. What profit is there in your 
fasting ! What advantage in your meeting to- 
gether so often in this placed And again, in 
another Homily, while in a pathetic manner ex- 
hibiting to them the moral influence of this con- 
duct, his language is — " Subdue, I beseech you, 
this wicked and pernicious custom. And con- 
sider, that they who run to the Circus, not only 
do much harm to themselves, but are the occa- 
sion of great scandal to others. For when the 
Jews and Gentiles see you, who are every day 
at Church to hear a sermon, come notwithstand- 
ing to the horse-race, and join with them in the 
Circus, will they not reckon our religion a cheat, 
and entertain the same suspicion of us all ? They 
will sharpen their tongues against us all, and for 
the offences of a few condemn the whole body of 
Christians. Neither will they stop here, but rail 
at our Head, and for the servant's fault blas- 
pheme our common Lord, and think that a suffi- 
cient apology and excuse for their own errors, 
that they have something to object to the life and 
conversation of others. " e 

d. St. Chrys. torn, ii, p. 49, Horn. 6, in Gen. 
€, St. Chrys. torn, ii, p. 61 Horn. 7, in Gen. 



ITS PROPER OBSERVANCE* 67 

And if worldly amusements have in this age 
changed their form, still their nature and in- 
fluence are the same. A ceaseless struggle for 
our affections is going on, and the choice we 
make determines our state, not only in this life, 
but through all the wasteless ages of our immor- 
tality. The tempter still arrays before the Christ- 
ian, the glare and gaudiness of this fleeting 
scene, that his attention may be distracted, and 
his progress towards Heaven impeded. On the 
other hand, it is the object of our faith, to cause 
him to look away beyond " things seen and tem- 
poral" to those which are "unseen'and eternal." 
We must live in this lower world, as pilgrims 
whose hopes and affections are not here — who 
bear about with them the consciousness that this 
is not their home, but that they are only journey- 
ers through the wilderness, toiling onward to the 
promised land. We are to be like St. Paul, 
" crucified with our Lord to the world, and the 
world to us" — gazing on its pleasures with the 
same unconcern with which the dying man would 
from the Cross — putting it from us, and leaving 
untried no means which may avail, to destroy 
the witchery of its enchantments, and to break 
its power over our hearts. We are even to give 
up its lawful comforts and its innocent enjoy- 



68 THE LENTEN FAST. 

merits, when called to this sacrifice for any wor- 
thy end ; for there may come occasion to the fol- 
lower of the Lord to " take pleasure in infirmi- 
ties, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, 
in distresses for Christ's sake.'" Thus, in striving 
to be more conformed to his Master, or more en- 
tirely to be disentangled from this scene of tempt- 
ation, he may be obliged to offer upon the altar 
of Christian duty, all those affections which twine 
most closely about the heart, " losing his life for 
Christ's sake and the Gospel's, that he may 
save it." 

" Sweet is the smile of home ; the mutual look 

When hearts are of each other sure ; 
Sweet all the joys that crowd the household nook, 

The haunt of all affections pure ; 
Yet in the world even these abide, and we 

Above the world our calling boast : 
Once gain the mountain top, and thou art free; 

Till then, who rest, presume ; who turn to look, 
are lost.'^ 

It was to escape the unholy influence of this 
world's fascinations, that the followers of our 
Lord were accustomed, in the olden time, to flee 
from this scene of trial, and in the solitary her- 

/, Keble's Christian Year. First Sunday in Lent. 



ITS PROPER OBSERVANCE. 69 

mitage, or the desert waste, where no man was, 
to pass their lives in communion with their God, 
and in making ready for their last account. But 
no precept of Scripture authorized them to rend 
the ties of duty, and for a selfish motive, to burst 
the chains which bound them to home and kin- 
dred. "It is a wretched righteousness " — -says 
Luther, in one of his letters to Spenlein — " which 
will not bear with others, because it deems them 
evil, and seeks the solitude of the desert, instead 
of doing good to such, by long suffering, by 
prayer, and example. If *thou art the lily and 
the rose of Christ, know that thy dwelling place 
is among thorns." 

Nor did they by this desertion attain their ob- 
ject. The piety at which they aimed, was tinged 
with dreamy reveries, and evaporated in con- 
templation of an imaginary purity. The pas- 
sions in their breasts which they had hoped to 
root out, turned inward, and centered in them- 
selves, and they found that if they could escape 
from the world without, they must still carry with 
them that little world within, in subduing which 
the conflict chiefly consists. They had cast from 
them the weapons of their warfare, and fled from 
the strife, leaving an ungodly world to roll on to 
destruction, unrebuked and unaided, and they 



70 THE LENTEN FAST. 

reaped their retribution. They deprived them- 
selves of all those high and ennobling feelings, 
which purify the heart, while they animate men 
to exertion. Their selfishness recoiled upon 
themselves, and the dreamy enthusiast who wish- 
ed to be wiser than Scripture, and to improve 
upon the example of his Lord, found that he had 
not added to the fortitude of his virtue. He had 
sacrificed his happiness, and become but too often 
only a gloomy misanthrope.* 7 

g. These remarks will of course apply only to the 
solitaries. While their cells were the very nurseries 
of superstition, they were said, in the language of 
Alcuin, "to lead an angelical life." Archbishop 
Leighton, however, much more truly describes an 
angelical life, as " a life spent between ascending in 
prayer to fetch blessings from above, and descending 
to scatter them among men." The monastic insti- 
tutions were free from many of those difficulties of 
which we have spoken, and in the purer days of the 
Church rendered essential service to the cause of re- 
ligion, when society around was in a rude and almost 
barbarous state. The monks were often learned and 
industrious — the patterns of active virtue — the 
liberal dispensers of charity — and the zealous pro- 
moters of learning and useful arts. " It was a great 
benefit, that there should be places of education, 



ITS PROPER OBSERVANCE. 71 

The true trial of our life heiie is to meet with 
evil, and yet, by God's grace to overcome it — 
to be in the world, and yet so to trample it under 
our feet as to show, that we are not of the 

where the young might be trained for the service of 
the Church or state : it was well that there should 
be places of retirement, where the aged might end 
their days in penitence and prayer ; and places of 
refuge, where the orphan and friendless might find 
support and protection" (Churton's Early Eng. 
Church, p. 104. See chap, v and vi). They who 
in the reign of Henry VIII. were grasping at the 
wealth of the monasteries, eagerly united to villify 
their occupants, and succeeding generations have 
quietly received their report, with scarcely the trou- 
ble of a doubt. But the true history of the monastic 
institution is yet to be written, by one, who with a 
philosophical eye can read its influence on the spirit 
of the age and the character of society, and who is 
ready with an unprejudiced, impartial feeling to 
acknowledge its benefits, while he points out the 
evils to which it "ultimately gave birth. 

It is probably not known to many of our readers, 
that there are in the kingdom of Hanover, eleven 
Protestant convents, or (to give them a better name) 
■' religious houses." They are asylums, to which 
respectable females " when thrown out upon the 
world by the dissolution of their families, can retire, 



72 THE LENTEN FAST. 

world — to have its fascinations around us, and 
yet to turn from them. Its Circean song may 
float sweetly to our ears, but yet it must not be- 
guile us to pass over into the land of its enchant- 
ments. It is in the fiery ordeal of temptation' 
and amidst the din and struggle of the conflict, 
that man learns to know himself, and to estimate 
aright his own spiritual powers. His hopes be- 
come more clear after every conquest which he 
makes — his reliance upon things unseen and 
eternal is strengthened — and his whole Christ- 
ian character is matured and perfected. " This 
is the victory that overcometh the world, even 
our faith." There is true wisdom indeed in the 
eloquent words of Milton, when he says — " He 
that can apprehend and consider vice with all 
her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, 
and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is 
truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian. 

without experiencing those mortifications which are 
so frequently attendant upon adversity " (Dwight's 
Germany, p. 100). An English lady has of late 
years founded a similar house, at Clifton near Bris- 
tol (Churton's Early Eng. Church, p. 382). The 
inmates of none of these institutions, however, are 
bound by those ensnaring vows which produced much 
of the evil in the Romish Church. 



ITS PROPER OBSERVANCE. 73 

I can not praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, 
unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies 
out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the 
race, where that immortal garland is to be run 
for, not without dust and heat. That which pu- 
rifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary. 
Which was the reason why our sage and serious 
poet Spencer, describing true Temperance under 
the person of Guion, brings him in with his Pal- 
mer through the cave of Mammon, and the bower 
of earthly bliss, that he might see and know, and 
yet abstain.' 1 

Yet it is evident, on the other hand, that a 
temporary retirement from the bustle and tumult 
of this busy life, is requisite to enable the spirit 
to shake off the worldliness which has been in- 
sensibly growing upon it, and to plume its wings 
again for Heaven. It is necessary, that man 
should now and then withdraw within himself, 
think of his eternal interests, and examine with 
peculiar care, his account with God. " We must 
retire inward" — says St. Bernard, — "if we 
would ascend upward." It is with this view* 
therefore, that the Church from the earliest age, 
has yearly in the season of Lent, recalled her 
children from the absorbing cares of time, and 
7 



74 THE LENTEN FAST. 

gathered them into her own bosom, to meditate 
and pray. 

The question — -how much under ordinary cir- 
cumstances, we may mingle in the gayeties and 
amusements of the world — is one which each 
individual must determine for himself. He knows 
their effect upon his own heart, and the influence 
of his example upon those around him, and must 
act accordingly. If after having in baptism 
solemnly renounced " the pomps and vanities of 
this wicked world," he still thinks it right to de- 
vote himself to them, he must be guided by his 
own conscience in this important decision. If 
he thinks it fit, that on Sunday his friends should 
see him kneeling at the altar, professing to for- 
sake the world, and then on the week day, meet 
him in all its frivolities and gayeties, until they 
suspect that his religion is only intended to be 
put on in Church, his is the responsibility, and 
his must be the retribution. To his own Master 
he must stand or fall. But the hour is rapidly 
coming, when from the bed of death and the bar 
of judgment, each one will be forced to look back 
upon these scenes, and decide whether he acted 
well and wisely while life was going on. 71 

h. One of the most common charges against the 



ITS PROPER OBSERVANCE 75 

Yet there are times and seasons, when there 
can be no mistake on this subject, and when the 
Church has decided that her children must retire, 
in a peculiar manner, from this world, to think of 

Church is, that her members are permitted to mingle 
in the gayeties of the world in a manner inconsistent 
with Christian character, and particularly to fre- 
quent theatrical amusements. This is no place, of 
course, to discuss the question, whether they do so 
more than those who are connected with the different 
denominations around them. We can only say, that 
when Churchmen are found in this situation — thus 
bringing discredit on their profession — it is in utter 
violation of the rules of the Church, and at variance 
with the spirit she endeavors to inculcate upon them 
by every one of her services, from the comprehensive 
Baptismal Vow, even to that last solemn prayer in the 
Visitation of the Sick, which commends the depart- 
ing soul to the mercy of its God. As conclusive evi- 
dence of the sense of the Church on this point, we 
can give the highest authority — that of the House 
of Bishops in General Convention. It stands thus 
recorded on their Journal : 

''Tuesday May 21th, 1817. Resolved, That the 
following be entered on the Journal of this House and 
be sent to the House of Clerical and Lay deputies, to 
be read therein : 



76 THE LENTEN FAST. 

that which is to come. Such, for instance, is 
the week which precedes the administration of 
the Holy Communion. It is with reference to 
this, that her ministers are commanded, " to give 

" The House of Bishops, solicitous for the preser- 
vation of the purity of the Church, and the piety of 
its members, are induced to impress upon the Clergy 
the important duty, with a discreet but earnest zeal, 
of warning the people of their respective cures, of 
the danger of an indulgence in those worldly plea- 
sures which may tend to withdraw the affections from 
spiritual things. And especially on the subject of 
gaming, of amusements involving cruelty to the brute 
creation, and of theatrical representations, to which 
some peculiar circumstances have called their atten- 
tion — they do not hesitate to express their unani- 
mous opinion, that these amusements, as well from 
their licentious tendency, as from the strong tempta- 
tions to vice which they afford, ought not to he fre* 
quented. And the Bishops can not refrain from ex- 
pressing their deep regret at the information that in 
some of our large cities so little respect is paid to 
the feelings of the members of the Church, that the- 
atrical representations are fixed for the evenings of 
her most solemn Festivals." — Journal of Gen. Con. 
1817, p. 46. 

Any one acquainted with the regular steps of de- 
gradation through which the theatre has passed during 



ITS PROPER OBSERVANCE. 77 

warning for its celebration upon the Sunday or 
some holy day immediately preceding." And 
at the same time it is made their duty to their 
hearers, " to exhort them in the mean season, so 
to search and examine their own consciences, 
that they may come holy and clean to such a 
heavenly feast, in the marriage garment required 
by God in Holy Scripture, and be received as 
worthy partakers of that holy table." Now un- 
less this appeal is a mere formality, and means 
nothing, surely we are expected in the interval 
to prepare ourselves for uniting in that solemn 
mystery, and no one needs this preparation more 
than the individual who loves this world so well 
that he finds it hard to obey the injunction. But 
is this to be done, amidst the bustle and excite- 
ment of worldly pleasure ? No — it is not there 
that God is accustomed to meet us, with the in- 

the last twenty- five years, will acknowledge that if 
it had " a licentious tendency" in 1817, that demoral- 
izing influence is doubly powerful in this day. Let 
not then occasional inconsistencies of members of the 
Church — inconsistencies, we believe, becoming each 
year more rare — be brought forward as any illustra- 
tion of the spirit of the Church. These are the ex- 
ceptions, and their conduct is looked upon by their 
fellow members with sorrow and shame. 



78 THE LENTEN FAST. 

fluences of His grace, or the rich aids of His 
Spirit. Let us not then endeavor, thus to mingle 
earth with Heaven, or to come to our Master's 
solemn feast with thoughts distracted by frivolity 
and amusement. Let us walk entirely as " child- 
ren of the light," or not attempt to worship at 
the altars both of Christ and Belial. 

Such a season, again, is that of Lent. Listen 
to the tones of earnest repentance which the ser- 
vices of the Church breathe forth, and then say, 
whether after giving utterence to these, we can 
rush at once into the embraces of a world, from 
which we have just prayed to be delivered. But 
are there any, who feel that six weeks is too long 
a time to withdraw from earthly pleasures? 
What — we would ask in reply — what must be 
the state of that spirit — what its preparation for 
Heaven — in which such thoughts could be en- 
tertained? This cleaving to the objects of our 
earthly worship — this miserable hankering after 
pleasures we profess to have abandoned — pro- 
claim but too clearly a self-deceived heart, still 
unbaptized by the Spirit from on high. Such an 
one has reason to fear, lest the day of solemn 
trial find him without the wedding garment. 
When at this season then, God calls to u weep- 
ing and mourning," shall it be said of us, u be- 
hold, joy and gladness ? " 



ITS PROPER OBSERVANCE. 79 

Self-Examination is another obvious duty 
which we must perform during the period of 
Lent. This naturally follows from what has 
been already advanced. If we withdraw from 
the world, it is not that we may spend our 
time in listless idleness, but that we may employ 
ourselves in girding up our loins anew, and trim- 
ming our lamps, to be ready for our Lord's ap- 
pearing. It is that we may "commune with 
our own hearts and be still." It is, that we 
may review the past, and as we compare our 
actions with the law of God, decide whether or 
not we are walking in the way of His command- 
ments. 

And who that knows the deceitfulness of the 
human heart — who that has ever read our Mas- 
ter's repeated warnings that we should " watch" 
— will say that this is unnecessary! We go 
forth to the world, with our decision made to 
serve the Lord, and our Christian hopes burning 
brightly ; but as one day after another passes by, 
insensibly we lose the simplicity of our religious 
character, and become at last " of the earth, 
earthly," before we even suspect that we have 
departed from the fervor of our earliest love. 
" The gold becomes dim, and the fine gold 
changed." Our thoughts are drawn off from 



80 THE LENTEN FAST. 

our Master and his cause, until the excitements 
and allurements which are around produce their 
natural result, and we begin to be willing to take 
our portion with those whom we had professed 
to leave. We learn to persuade ourselves, to 
yield in things which a more tender conscience 
would have taught us to refuse, until our service 
becomes partial and worldly, and we are no 
longer heartily devoted to the Lord. 

Now, how many thus pass through life? At 
times, the monitor within utters its voice, and 
they are forced to doubt, whether or not they are 
in the faith. Yet they at once dispel these dis- 
agreeable thoughts. From a natural indolence 
of disposition, they shrink from the task of inves- 
tigating their own hearts. They seem willing 
to live along, trusting that it may in the end be 
well with them. They postpone to the last day, 
the decision of the most solemn question this 
world can furnish, although then it will be too 
late to rectify an error. Is it not therefore well 
for us, at times to stop in our worldly career, and 
settle this point? Many are the lessons of so- 
lemn caution which our Master gave, to guard 
against this very danger. The rich man who 
thought not of death — the servants who ate 
and drank, but remembered not their Lord's re- 



ITS PROPER OBSERVANCE. 81 

turn — and the virgins who slept when the bride- 
groom was at hand, and then awoke only to 
bitter disappointment — are all set forth for our 
warning. And how miserable would be our 
state; should the summons thus be heard when 
we expect it not, and then for the first time the 
full consciousness burst upon us, that we have 
been deceiving our own hearts, and serving the 
world ! Let us therefore watch and examine 
ourselves, that as time passes by, there may grow 
no rust upon our souls, and no habitual sin darken 
the mirror on which the pure light of Heaven 
should be reflected. Let us not, when once we 
have girded on our armor, lay it aside or be 
found sleeping at our post. In the solemn day 
of our Master's appearing, when " all kindreds 
of the earth wail because of Him," let us be 
found among those chosen ones, whom the Church 
has gathered into her fold, trained in every holy 
work, and purifed for her Lord, that they might 
be found ready when His marriage hour should 
come. 

There is one more way, by which we should 
peculiarly mark this season as one of penitence — 
it is by Fasting. On the morning of Ash- Wed- 
nesday, we prostrate ourselves before our God 
and say— " Be favorable, O Lord, be favorable 



82 THE LEKTEN FAST. 

to thy people, who turn to thee in weeping, 
fasting and praying." And yet by how many, 
have we not reason to fear, are these words ut- 
tered, who shrink from the Christian duty of 
which they speak ! It is much more easy to of- 
fer unto God the tribute of our lips, than to 
chasten and discipline the body. We believe it 
is for this reason, that in these days when men 
seek their own comfort, this practice which has 
prevailed through all ages of the Jewish and 
Christian Churches, has fallen so much into dis- 
use. 

Yet take up the word of God, and what duty 
is spoken of more decidedly, or the performance 
of which is more frequently followed by a bless- 
ing ! Joshua and the elders of Israel, when de 
feated by the men of Ai, kept a solemn fast, as 
they remained all day, " until the even-tide," 
prostrate on the earth before the ark, with dust 
upon their heads, in humiliation and prayer. 
And the result was, that victory again attended 
them. Datid fasted as well as prayed, when he 
humbled himself before God after his sin against 
Uriah, and although deprived of his child, yet his 
iniquity was forgiven. The inhabitants of Nin- 
eveh, in fear of judgments obeyed the decree of 
their King, when he proclaimed--- 4 ' Let neither 



ITS PROPER OBSERVANCE. 83 

man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing ; 
let them not feed nor drink water ; but let man 
and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry 
mightily unto God " — and their city was spared. 
The devoted Ezra, when setting out for Jerusa- 
lem, assembled the returning captives at the river 
Ahava, and there "proclaimed a fast, that they 
might afflict themselves before God, and seek of 
Him a right way for themselves and their little 
ones, and for all their substance ' — and he ob- 
tained the blessing he asked. And thus we 
might go through the Old Testament, and show 
that on every important occasion, the ancient 
saints under the former dispensation not only 
prayed but fasted also. 

And so it continued to be, when the Gospel 
dawned upon the earth. Anna was " serving 
God with fastings and prayers, night and day," 
when her petition was answered, and she saw 
her Savior. Our Lord himself, before he en- 
tered on His public ministry, passed through a 
long period of preparatory fasting. The Apostles 
did so, before every solemn act in which they en- 
gaged. They were "in fastings often." St. 
Paul frequently refers to the use of this means 
of grace. He declares, that he " approves him- 
self a minister of God," as in other things, so 



84 THE LENTEN FAST. 

" in fastings also ;" and he writes to the Corinth- 
ians — " Give yourselves to fasting and prayer." 
Cornelius, " the devout centurion, 11 was engaged 
in fasting, when the angel announced to him, 
that his alms and prayers had " come up for a 
memorial before God. 11 St. Peter was fasting, 
when that wonderful vision revealed to him the 
admission of the Gentiles into the Church of 
God, and commissioned him to be to them, the 
earliest herald of the Gospel. The Church at 
Antioch was fasting, when the Holy Ghost said, 
" separate me Barnabas and Saul. 11 

Neither can it be argued, that this was not 
expressly commanded by our Lord. He found 
the practice in use, and spake of it as one which 
should be continued. He gave directions to His 
disciples, how they ought to fast, and promised 
that they should be recompensed for the right 
performance of this duty. " But thou, when thou 
fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face ; 
that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto 
thy Father which is in secret ; and thy Father 
which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. 11 
Well therefore has Hooker remarked — " Our 
Lord and Savior would not teach the manner of 
doing, much less propose a reward for doing, that 
which were not both holy and acceptable in 



ITS PROPER OBSERVANCE. 85 

God's sight."* But our Master also expressly 
declared, that after His departure His children in 
sorrow for his absence, should thus afflict them- 
selves. " The days will come, when the bride- 
groom shall be taken from them, and then shall 
they fast." Does not this clearly prove the truth, 
that He considered it as a duty ? 

What again, we would ask, means that declar- 
ation of His, with respect to the faith which could 
remove mountains ? " Howbeit this kind goeth 
not out, but by prayer and fasting." Do not 
these words imply, that there are nobler attain- 
ments in the Christian life to be gained by those, 
who through severity to themselves are able to 
strive after them ? And do they not point out, 
" the unseen strength " of fasting as that which 
is to enable the Christian warrior to .win the 
brightest crown? Yes, this is that " moreen* 
cellent way n which is opened to those u who 
will receive it." 

And this was the light in which the early 
Church regarded this duty. In those days, when 
they stood near to their Lord, and walked in His 
hallowed footsteps, how often is this practice 
mentioned as one, whose value the Church fully 

i. Eccles. Polity, b. v, sec. 72, 
8 



86 THE LENTEN FAST. 

appreciated ! Thus, St. Chrysostom says — 
" Though at other times when we preachers cry 
up and preach the duty of fasting never so much 
all the year, scarce any one hearkens to what we 
say, yet when the season of forty days is come, 
though none exhort or advise them, the most 
negligent set themselves to it, taking admonition 
and advice from the very season. ,1j ' And again 
he adds — " If a Jew or a Heathen ask you, why 
do you fast? Do not tell him, it is for our 
Savior's Passion on the cross ; for so you will 
give him an handle to accuse you. For we do 
not fast for the Passion or the Cross, but for our 
sins, because we are come to the Holy Myste- 
ries. The Passion is not the occasion of fasting 
or mourning, but of joy and exultation. We 
mourn not for that, but for our sins, and there- 
fore we fast." 

The manner too of their fasting in those ancient 
days, shows how thoroughly they desired to fulfill 
this duty. Instead of considering a change of 
food only as being sufficient, they entirely ab- 
stained from all sustenance through the whole 
day until the evening* Thus we find St. Am- 
brose, in one of his exhortations to his hearers to 
observe the Lent Fast, bidding them — "defer 

j. St. Chrys. torn, v, Horn. 52, p. 709. 



ITS PROPER OBSERVANCE, 87 

eating a little, because the end of the day is not 
far off." & St. Chrysostom in his Lent sermons 
frequently alludes to the same ^circumstance. 
"Let us" — he says — "seta guard upon our 
ears, our tongues, and minds, and not think that 
bare fasting till the evening is sufficient for our 
salvation."* And again in another passage, 
which we can not forbear quoting entire, on ac- 
count of the admirable view which it gives of 
this whole duty. We have [indeed been fre- 
quently induced to transfer to these pages more 
of the writings of the old Fathers of the Church, 
than many persons may think desirable. But 
when at the present day, " ancient Christianity" m 

k. Bing. Orig. Eccles. lib. xxi, chap. 1, see. 16. 

I. St. Chrys. torn, ii, Horn. 4, in Gen., p. 37. 

m. It might seem scarcely worth while to notice 
the work published a couple of years since under 
the imposing title of " Ancient Christianity," were it 
not for the fact, that it continues to be an arsenal 
from which the enemies of the Primitive Church 
draw their weapons. The Rev. Fred. W. Faber, in 
his tract on " The Unfulfilled Glory of the Church," 
gives this admirable abstract of its argument, and 
the beautiful practical result to which Mr. Taylor 
leads his readers. " His view, so far as we can 



88 THE LENTEN FAST. 

is held up to scorn, and mutilated passages are 
produced to fasten the charge of ignorance or 
licentiousness upon those, " whose witness is in 
Heaven and whose record is on high," we think 
it well to prove, whenever it may be in our 
power, that men whom the Church has been 
accustomed to reverence, really "held fast the 
profession of their faith without wavering. " The 
extract to which we refer is this — "The true 
fast is abstinence from vices. For abstinence 

gather it, from the confused arrangement and ambig- 
uous oracular style of his book, may be stated thus : 
— That Christianity was never less Christian than 
when it was ancient (p. 99) ; that Nicene Christian- 
ity was the Apostacy predicted by St. Paul, (p. 
299); that Romanism is an improvement upon it, 
and has done the best it could with it (pp. 78, 79) ; 
that, however, the Church did not cast off the 
slough of Gnosticism and apostacy till the Reforma- 
tion, (passim) ; that up to that time oriental Christ- 
ianity was mainly SooiFeeism and occidental Christ- 
ianity mainly Brahminism (p. 147, et al,) ; that the 
Reformers themselves were too much addicted to 
"demonology; 99 that the English Church is "unto- 
wardly" Nicene in her formularies; finally, that we 
must emancipate ourselves forthwith, the means of 
doing which the author has not yet published." 



ITS PROPER OBSERVANCE. 89 

from meat was appointed upon this occasion, 
that we should curb the tone of our flesh, and 
make the horse obedient to his rider. He that 
fasts, ought above all things to bridle his anger, 
to learn meekness and clemency, to have a con- 
trite heart, to banish the thoughts of all inordi- 
nate desires, to set the watchful eye of God before 
his eyes, and his uncorrupted judgment ; to set 
himself above riches, and exercise great liberal- 
ity in giving of alms, and to expel every evil 
thought against his neighbor out of his soul. 
This is the true fast. Therefore let this be our 
care, and let us not imagine, as many do, that 
we have fasted rightly, when we have abstained 
from eating until evening. This is not the thing 
required of us, but that together with our absti- 
nence from meat, we should abstain from those 
things that hurt the soul, and diligently exercise 
ourselves in things of a spiritual nature."* 

Yet we must not forget, in considering their 
manner of fasting, that an Asiatic climate ren- 
dered comparatively easy what to us would ap- 
pear to be an excessive severity. The lassitude 
of constitution, and languor of the whole system, 
which were produced by that genial temperature, 
enabled them to carry it to an extent, which in 

n. St. Chrys. Horn. 8, in Gen., p. 79. 



90 THE LENTEN FAST. 

this latitude, or among the nations of Northern 
Europe, would be oppressive, and totally defeat 
the object for which it was undertaken. 

Even in that day, however, this duty was per- 
formed with great allowance to human infirmi- 
ties ; thus showing plainly, that instead of being 
made a superstitious form, it was used with re- 
ference to its spiritual benefits. '"Let no one" — 
says St. Chrysostom — "place his confidence in 
fasting only, if he continue in his sins without 
reforming. For it may be, one that fasts not at 
all, may obtain pardon, if he has the excuse of 
bodily infirmity. But he that does not correct 
his sins, can have no excuse. Thou hast not 
fasted by reason of the weakness of thy body ; 
but why art thou not reconciled to thy enemies ? 
Canst thou pretend bodily infirmity here? If 
thou retainest hatred and envy, what apology 
canst thou make ? In such crimes as these thou 
canst not fly to the refuge of bodily weakness." 
And again, in another Homily, he dwells upon 
this subject still more fully. " If thou canst not 
pass all the day fasting, by reason of bodily 
weakness, no wise man can condemn thee for 
this. For we have a kind and merciful Lord, 
who requires nothing of us above our strength. 

o. St. Chrys. Horn. 22. de Ira, torn, i, p. 277. 



ITS PROPER OBSERVANCE. 91 

He neither requires abstinence from meat, nor 
fasting simply of us, nor that for this end we 
should continue without eating only; but that 
withdrawing ourselves from worldly affairs, we 
should pass all our leisure time in spiritual things. 
For if we would order our lives soberly, and lay 
out our spare hours upon spiritual things, and 
eat only so much as we had need of, and nature 
required, and spend our whole lives in good 
w r orks, we should not need the help of fasting. 
But because human nature is negligent, and 
gives itself rather ease and pleasure, therefore 
our kind Lord, as a compassionate Father, hath 
found out this medicine of fasting for us, that we 
should abridge ourselves in our pleasures, and 
transfer our care of secular things to works of a 
spiritual nature. If therefore there be any here 
present who are hindered by bodily infirmity, 
and can not continue all day fasting, I exhort 
them to have regard to the weakness of their 
bodies, and not upon that account deprive them- 
selves of spiritual instruction, but for that very 
reason to pay more diligent attendance on it 
For there are many ways besides abstinence 
from meat, which will open to us the door of con- 
fidence towards God. He therefore that eats, 
and can not fast let him give the more plentiful 



92 THE LENTEN FAST. 

alms, let hirn be more fervent in his prayers, let 
him show the greater alacrity and readiness in 
hearing the divine oracles. For the weakness 
of the body is no impediment in such offices as 
these. Let him be reconciled to his enemies, 
and forget injuries, and cast all thoughts of re- 
venge out of his mind. He that does these 
things, will show forth the true fasting, which 
the Lord chiefly requires. Therefore I exhort 
you who are able to fast, to go on with all pos- 
sible alacrity in this good and laudable work, for 
by how much more our outward man perishes, 
so much more our inward man is renewed."** 

And the same rule of moderation continues to 
be that of the Church in our day. Caring for 
the bodily as well as the spiritual health of her 
members, she prescribes only such a degree of 
fasting, as may keep our lower nature in subjec- 
tion to that which is spiritual. Thus we are 
taught to pray on the first Sunday in Lent — 
" O Lord, who for our sake didst fast forty days 
and forty nights ; give us grace to use such ab- 
stinence, that our flesh being subdued to the 
spirit, we may ever obey Thy godly motions in 
righteousness and true holiness, to Thy honor 
and glory." 

p. St, Chrys. Horn. 10, in Gen., torn, ii, p. 91. 



ITS PROPER OBSERVANCE. 93 

We would also observe, that united with this 
fast, or rather flowing from it, were more abun- 
dant deeds of charity. What they saved by 
their abstinence they expended on the poor. 
Thus, we find an Apostolic Father saying : — "A 
true fast is not merely to keep under the body, 
but to give to the widow, or the poor, the amount 
of that which thou wouldst have expended upon 
thyself; that so he who receives it may pray to 
God for thee." a Origen says — "He found it 
in some book as a noted saying of the Apostles, 
" Blessed is he who fasts for this end, that he 
may feed the poor ; this man's fast is acceptable 
unto God." r St. Chrysostom, in the extracts al- 
ready given, alludes to this duty, and at a later 
period, we find St. Augustine writing — "Fast- 
ing without almsgiving, is a lamp without oil." 

Such then is the argument for this practice, 
drawn from Scripture, and also the manner of its 
performance in the early Church. It may be 
thought by some, that too great a space has been 
devoted to this discussion; but we must remem- 
ber, that in the present day, there is probably no 
duty so little understood, and so lightly evaded* 

q. Hernias Pastor, in Cotel., torn, i, p. 106. 
r. Bing. Orig. Eccles,, lib, xxi, cb. 1, sec, 18. 



94 THE LENTEN FAST. 

" We will practice mortification and self denial 
for learning's sake, but not for Christ's. We 
will abstain from joys, and pleasures, and com- 
pany, and numberless indulgences, and put re- 
straint even on our loves, when ambition calls, 
but not at the bidding of the Church. We will 
neglect our health and rest, and become worn 
and pale, and weary and weak, to gain earthly 
wisdom, and power of intellect, and shorten our 
lives to leave our names among posterity lifted 
some very little, it may be, above the obscurity 
of the unnumbered dead. But to smooth down 
the severity of discipline, to have an easy Lent, or 
go softly through a fast, we are ready to talk of 
our health and habits, and way of living, and the 
hardness of our duly, and the weakness of our 
flesh, and in a light way of the mercy of our 
God. We are strong to do all things for our 
selves, our own ambition strengthening us. We 
are weak for Christ, even though He be ready 
to give us strength. ,1s And it is, we believe, 
because this duty is so little practised as a regu- 
lar habit, that its benefits are so undervalued. 
It is often eagerly commenced in a fit of transient 
zeal, but the natural inclinations raise their re- 

s. Faber's tracts on the Offices of the Church. 



ITS PROPER OBSERVANCE. 95 

monstrance — it is found wearisome and painful 
— and after one or two attempts entirely laid 
aside. But is it not true, that this is scarcely 
giving it a trial? To be appreciated, and its 
benefits felt, it must be a habit — be practised 
often — and become, as it were, a portion of our 
regular religious service. Thus, that which at 
first was performed with difficulty, is rendered 
easy ;* and we learn at last, that the ancient 
saints in Primitive days, knew human nature 
better than we do, and when they urged those 
who should come after them, to " crucify the 
flesh " as a source of spiritual benefits, were only 
giving the result of their own experience. 

This then is that discipline, by whose severity 
we are to weaken the force of passion, and of 
those appetites which else assert the mastery 

t. Goethe somewhere makes a remark, which may 
be applied to the whole circle of our religious duties : 
64 Neither in moral or religious, more than in physical 
and civil matters, do people willingly do any thing 
suddenly or upon the instant ; they need a succession 
of the like actions, whereby a habit may be formed ; 
the things which they are to love, or to perform, they 
can not conceive as insulated and detached ; whatever 
we are to repeat with satisfaction, must not have be- 
come foreign to us. 9 * 



96 THE LENTEN FAST. 

over the soul, and bind it down to earth. " I 
keep under my body " — says St. Paul — u and 
bring it into subjection : lest that by any means 
when I have preached to others, I myself should 
be a cast away." And St. Chrysostom declares — 
" Fasting restrains the body, and checks and 
bridles its inordinate sallies, but makes the soul 
much lighter, and gives it wings to mount up 
and soar on high. ,,w It teaches too, the habit of 
self-denial— leading us at intervals to remember 
that our object in this life is not to please our- 
selves, but rather to overcome temptation — to 
restrain and mortify the cravings of appetite. 
Thus we conquer that self-indulgence, which if 
permitted unfits us for spiritual duties. 17 And 
how forcibly also does it 'cause us to realize 
things unseen and eternal ! It is an act so con- 
trary to the spirit of this world, that it brings at 
once before us the truth, that here is not our 
home. All religious feelings therefore are kin- 
dled up, and our habits of prayer and devotion 

u. St. Chrys. Horn. 10, in Gen., torn, ii, p. 91. 

v. " It is a most miserable state for a man to hare 
every thing according to his desire, and quietly to 
enjoy the pleasures of life. There needs no more to 
expose him to eternal misery." Bishop Wilson — 
Sacra Privata. Wednesday. 



ITS PROPER OBSERVANCE. 97 

are quickened into exercise. And in this active, 
busy age, when outward excitement has taken 
the place of earnest, holy contemplation, how 
necessary becomes any discipline, which can thus 
withdraw us from the things of time and sense ! 
By its means we gather strength for the conflict 
yet before us, in which " we wrestle not against 
flesh and blood, " but our enemies are those 
mighty spirits who once bore a nobler nature 
than our own — " powers which erst in Heaven 
sat on thrones " — and who still, in their dark 
apostacy, retain for the accomplishment of evil, 
the same radiant intellects, with which they were 
gifted for the service of God. We come forth 
from our retirement, more subdued and chastened 
in spirit — with a calm and abiding consciousness, 
that we must be the true followers of " the man 
of sorrows.'" Then, like His servants of old, to 
whom revelations came in the hours of holy absti* 
nence, we are better prepared to listen to the 
voice of God — our own prayers go up more 
earnestly to his throne — and our affections are 
crucified to a world which is fast fleeting away. 
Therefore it was, that when the Church was re- 
formed from the corruptions of Rome, fasting was 
still prescribed " to discipline the flesh, to free 
the spirit, and render it more earnest and fervent 
9 



95 THE LENTEN FAST. 

to prayer, and as a testimony and witness with us 
before God of our humble submission to His High 
Majesty, when we confess our sins unto Him, 
and are inwardly touched with sorrowfulness of 
heart, bewailing the same in the affliction of our 
bodies."™ There is therefore, as much truth as 
poetry in the exhortation — 

"Deem not such penance hard — thence from the soul 
The cords of flesh are loos'd, and earthly woes 

Lose half their power to harm ; while self-control 
Learns that blest freedom, which she only knows/'* 

Thus it is then that we may keep this Holy 
Season — by withdrawing from the world — by 
self-examination — by prayer and fasting — so that 
when it has passed, we shall find that we have 
gained new strength for our onward course. 
And how strong the argument to do so, as one 
year after another goes silently by, and we press 
forward to the grave ! Now indeed is our re- 
ward nearer than when first we believed. Now 
is the bridegroom with some of us, almost at 
hand. Soon we shall hear that warning cry, 
which will startle even the slumbering from their 
dreams, and then his train will sweep along, and 
the glorious band of the Elect who are with Him, 

w. First Part of the Homily on fasting. 
x. The Cathedral, 



ITS PROPER OBSERVANCE 99 

go in to the marriage. But does each sea- 
son, as it thus bears us nearer to the tomb, carry 
us also nearer to Heaven ? Are we ready for 
that summons, with our account made up, and 
so living in watchfulness that the coming of the 
Son of Man can not surprise us ? Are we num- 
bered with those " little ones " whose " angels do 
always behold the face of our Heavenly Father," 
and whom the Church, by the quiet influence of 
her rites and services, is diligently training up 
for immortality? When this decaying life is 
over, and we are waiting in silence that stroke 
which dismisses the spirit to its Judge, shall we 
be able to feel, as we review our days, that we 
have availed ourselves of all the opportunities 
our Master afforded, of preparing for that solemn 
crisis ? Life with each one of us must be em- 
ployed, in becoming meet for the recompense of 
the just, and in gathering spoils for Eternity. 
This is the only true use of existence here, and 
thus only can it be something more than an 
empty dream. It must be a life, spent in look- 
ing forward to its close, and in preparing dili- 
gently for that solemn change which is to pass 
upon all men — 

11 Life that shall send 
A challenge to its end, 
And when it comes, say ' Welcome, friend.' " 



%\t 3M-i»2 gtiqen in f*«t. 



Could ye not watch one hour ! 
Be ready ! on the bridal train 

And bridegroom, with His dower, 
May sweep along in vain. 
Miserere mei! 

Coxe's " Christian Ballads" 



9* 



III. 



" What ! could ye not watch with me one 
hour ?" was on a certain occasion the appeal 
made to some of the disciples of our Master. 
And how solemnly must it have sounded in the 
ears of those to whom it was addressed ! The 
Person from whom it came— the time — the place 
in which it was uttered — all united to invest it 
with emphasis. The Person, was the Lord Je- 
sus Christ. The time, was % when His career on 
earth was just closing, and the morrow was to 
behold Him stretched upon the Cross. The 
place, was the garden of Gethsemane, the very 
name of which awakens in our minds, the re- 
membrance of those fearful sorrows even unto 
death, of our suffering Lord. 

We are told, that on that last night, after He 
had instituted the sacred rite which was through 
all ages, both to keep alive in the minds of His 



104 THE LENTEN FAST. 

people, the " perpetual memory of His precious 
death and sacrifice until His coming again," and 
also to be their "spiritual food and sustenance." 
He delivered His final instructions to the disci- 
ples, and then, once more solemnly commended 
them to the care of His Father who is in Hea- 
ven. This was the concluding scene of His min- 
istry, and He therefore prepared Himself for the 
death which was at hand. Taking Peter, and 
James, and John, He went forth to the Garden, 
and " began to be sorrowful and very heavy. 
Then saith He unto them, My soul is exceeding 
sorrowful, even unto death ; tarry ye here, and 
watch with me. And He went a little further, 
and fell on his face, and prayed." And, oh ! 
how fearful was the conflict of spirit which He 
then endured, when the terrors of the death He 
was about to suffer, were arrayed before His 
mind, and His human nature was forced to 
shrink back from the view ! Listen to the earn- 
est words of His petition, as amid the darkness 
of the night, He prostrated Himself upon the 
ground: "Father, all things are possible unto 
Thee ; take away this cup from me : neverthe- 
less, not what I will, but what thou wilt." And 
then, " being in an agony, He prayed more earn- 
estly ; and His sweat was as it were great drops 



THE WEEK-DAY PRAYERS. 105 

of blood falling down to the ground." It was 
when this prayer was ended — -when he had poured 
out His soul to God, and been strengthened by 
an angel for His approaching trial, that returning 
to His disciples, He found them asleep, and awoke 
them with the mournful appeal— " What ! could 
ye not watch with me one hour ?" 

And we think that our Lord might address this 
same touching inquiry to many among us, who 
in this day profess His name. There is too, in 
some respects, a degree of analogy between our 
situation, and that of the disciples who first list- 
ened to these words. We also are looking for- 
ward to that sacrifice on the Cross, the celebra- 
tion of which will soon arrive. At this solemn 
season, we are — or ought to be — endeavoring by 
prayer, and weeping, and fasting, to prepare our 
hearts for uniting in its commemoration. And to 
aid us in this work, the Church has appointed 
peculiar services, well adapted to lead our 
thoughts away from the things of this world, to 
contemplate the mysteries of redemption. During 
each week in the season of Lent, in accordance 
with her regulations, the House of God is open, 
that his children may meet, and turn unto Him 
with that appropriate petition — " Create and 
make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, 



106 THE LENTEN FAST. 

worthily lamenting our sins, and acknowledging 
our wretchedness, may obtain of Thee, the God 
of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness, 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. , ' a 

This then, is the most solemn period of our 
Ecclesiastical year, whether we look at the na- 
ture of the services in which we are invited to 
join, or that mysterious event to which we are 
constantly pointed forward. And yet, how sel- 
dom do even those who " profess and call them- 
selves Christians, embrace as fully as they ought, 
these opportunities of communing with God in 
His holy temple ! How frequently, when the 
sanctuary each week opens its doors, and invites 
them to break off for a brief period from the 
bustle and engrossing cares of the world, do they 
permit the most trivial excuse to prevent them 
from answering to the call ! May not our Lord 
then say to many among us, as He did to His 
disciples of old, in a tone of mingled sorrow and 
reproach — " What ! could ye not watch with me 
one hour !" 

Let us then briefly look at some of the mo- 
tives, which should induce every Christian, to 
avail himself of the week-day services of the 
Church during this period. 

a. Collect for Ash- Wednesday. 



THE WEEK-DAY PRAYERS. 107 

The season itself, presents its earnest appeal. 
When God delivered the law upon Sinai, the 
people of Israel were commanded for three da) r s 
before, to sanctify themselves, that they might 
be prepared to behold, even from a distance, the 
glory of Jehovah, as the mountain was wreathed 
with clouds, and " quaked greatly, because the 
Lord descended upon it in fire." When there- 
fore we are called upon to approach that more 
wonderful mountain, on which, by the tears and 
blood of the Incarnate Son of God, was wrought 
out the sublime mystery of man's redemption, 
should we not be earnest to put away from us 
our earthliness of feeling, and to purify our hearts 
in anticipation of that solemn scene ? Yes, as the 
time draws near, when we are to be led to the 
Cross — to contemplate the Passion and bitter 
agonies of our Lord — and to behold Him dying 
for our salvation, it seems but proper, that we 
should undergo some additional preparation of 
heart. We should not rush at once from the tu- 
mult of this noisy world, to the foot of Calvary. 
When still far distant, we should veil our heads, 
and put our shoes from off our feet, realizing 
that we are on holy ground. As we slowly ap- 
proach that spot, to which even angels would 
look with intense emotion, a holy fear should fall 



108 THE LENTEN FAST. 

upon us, and in the depth of our souls we should 
meditate upon the solemn scene which is to be 
unfolded to our view. 

Is it then asking too much, if during the brief 
period of these forty days we are invited to as- 
semble in the house of God twice in each week, 
for a short time to think of our dying Savior, and 
to bewail the sins which brought him to the 
Cross ? Is there not an evident propriety in that 
regulation, commenced even in Primitive times, 
by which Wednesday (the day on which the 
Jews took counsel to betray our Lord,) and Fri- 
day, (the day of his death,) are devoted to affec- 
tionate remembrance of Him, and humiliation for 
ourselves l b Did He suffer in agony for our 
transgressions, and yet, shall we think so lightly 
of them, that we will not " rend our hearts," and 
pray God to blot out our- guilt ? Can we, while 

b. St. Austin says — " This reason may be given, 
why the Church fasts chiefly on the fourth and sixth 
days of the week, because it appears upon consid- 
ering the Gospel, that on the fourth day, which we 
commonly call Feria Quarfa, the Jews took counsel 
to kill our Lord, and on the sixth day our Lord suf- 
fered. For which reason the sixth day is rightly ap- 
pointed a fast.' ' — Bing. Orig. Ecchs. lib. xxi, chap. 
3, sec. 2. 



THE WEEK-DAY PRAYERS. 109 

pursuing this course, realize as we should, the 
exceeding depth of our degradation ? Can we 
truly estimate, from how fearful a woe we have 
been delivered, when we will not look to our 
Lord on the Cross, or remember how terrible 
were the sufferings which then crushed His hu- 
man nature ? 

This indeed is a subject "which appeals most 
plainly to our reason. Is there not every thing 
in the services, and the hallowed recollections of 
this period, to induce us to humble ourselves in 
the dust of abasement before God — to seek par- 
don for the past, and strength for the future ? 
Should not every principle of gratitude to our 
Lord cause us to go gladly to the temple with 
those that keep holyday? Should our public 
worship be confined to the Sunday ; or should we 
not endeavor, by practice as well as by words,, 
to show our concurrence in that sentence of the 
Te Deum which we so often repeat — " Day by 
day we magnify Thee?" When therefore all 
these appeals call forth no response from the 
hearts of our Lord's professed followers, may 
He not say to them — "'What! could ye not 
watch with me one hour?' with me, who for 
your sake became 8 a man of sorrows, and ac- 
quainted with grief' — with me, who was 'brought 

10 



HO THE LENTEN FAST. 

as a lamb to the slaughter,' that you might live ? 
Must I disrobe myself of my Heavenly glory, 
and come to this earth of suffering and woe, and 
pass a weary pilgrimage of thirty years, and yet, 
my children not be able to watch one single hour, 
to prepare their hearts to think upon my sacri- 
fice ? Did I endure the crown of thorns — the 
scoffs of men — the malefactor's shame — and 
the agony of the Cross — and yet, are not those 
who reap the benefit of my sufferings able to en- 
dure a single hour of communion with me — one 
single hour of watchfulness and prayer?" 

Again — by attendance on the week-day 
prayers, we are in some degree following the 

EXAMPLE SET US BY THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANS. 

In the ancient Church, there were religious as- 
semblies for prayer and preaching every day 
through the whole season of Lent. " I can not 
affirm " — says Bingham — " that it was so in every 
Parochial Church and country village, but that it 
was so in the greater or Cathedral Churches, is 
evident from undeniable proofs and matter of 
fact." c 

The Homilies of St. Chrysostom upon Genesis, 
from which we have already so often quoted, 
were sermons preached in this manner, day after 

c, Orig* Eccles. lib. xxi, chap. 1, sec. 20. 



THE WEEK-DAY PRAYERS. Ill 

day, as is evident from many allusions they con- 
tain. Take, for example, a single passage in 
one of them — " This is not the only thing that is 
required, that we should meet here every day, 
and hear sermons continually, and fast the whole 
Lent. For if we gain nothing by these continual 
meetings and exhortations and seasons of fasting 
to the advantage of our souls, they will not only 
do us no good, but be the occasion of a severer 
condemnation. If after so much care and pains 
bestowed upon us, we continue the same ; if the 
angry man does not become meek, and the pas- 
sionate mild and gentle ; if the envious does not 
reduce himself to a friendly temper ; nor the co- 
vetous man depart from his madness and fury in 
the pursuit of riches, and give himself to alms- 
deeds and feeding the poor ; if the intemperate 
man does not become chaste and sober, and the 
vainglorious learn to despise false honor, and 
seek for that which is true ; if he that is negli- 
gent of charity to his neighbor, does not stir up 
himself, and endeavor not only not to come be- 
hind the Publicans (who love those that love 
them), but also to look friendly upon his enemies, 
and exercise all acts of charity towards them ; 
if we do not conquer these affections, and all 
others that spring up from our natural corrup- 

10 



112 THE LENTEN FAST. 

tion ; though we assemble here every day, and 
enjoy continual preaching and teaching, and 
have the assistance of fasting : what pardon can 
we expect, what apology shall we make for our- 
selves ?"<* 

Thus it was the custom of the Church, in her 
primitive and holier days, by constantly recurring 
periods of devotion, gradually to build up her 
children in the faith, and in a ripeness of 
Christian character. Then, she so often called 
them to prayer, that the world had no opportu- 
nity of enlisting their affections, or leading them 
from the truth. They were forced to walk, " as 
seeing Him who is invisible." They devoted to 
intercourse with Heaven, and to communing with 
their own hearts before God, times which in this 
worldly age men could not bear to have snatched 
from secular employments. They were not 
contented with coming to their Lord's temple on 
the first day of each week alone, but they sanc- 
tified the hours of every day with devotion. 
Look, for instance, at what were called in the 
early Church, "the Canonical hours of Prayer," 6 

d. St. Chrys. Horn. 11, in Gen., torn, ii, p. 107. 

e. The subject of the daily services in the early 
Church deserves a brief notice, because in this day 



THE WEEK DAY PRAYERS. 113 

by which without interfering with the business of 
this world, she regularly called her members to 
remember the solemn realities of the world which 

reference is often made to " the seven Canonical hours 
of public prayer in the Primitive Church," when in 
fact, no such seasons were known at that time. The 
appointed periods for daily prayer were probably 
three in number. One of the writers of the Oxford 
" Tracts for the Times," (who certainly would not be 
inclined to diminish these services of the early 
Church,) says — " the Jewish observance of the 
third, sixth, and ninth hours for prayer, w r as con- 
tinued by the inspired founders of the Christian 
Church." (No. 75, On the Breviary.) This also 
was Wheatley's view. (On Common prayer, p. 84.) 
As late as the time of St. Chrysostom, there is no 
mention in any writer of more than these three pe- 
riods. Thus in one place this Father represents an 
individual as complaining, " How is it possible for 
me, who am a secular man, and confined to the courts 
of law, to run to Church, and pray at the three hours 
of the day?" To which St. Chrysostom answers, 
"that if he could not come to Church, because he 
was so fettered to the court, yet he might pray even as 
he [stood there" (Horn. 4, de. Anna, torn, ii, p. 
995). Tertullian also incidentally alludes to " tertia 
hora, et sexta, et nona," as the usual ones of public 
prayer (de Jejun. cap. 10). 
10* 



114 THE LENTEN FAST. 

is to come, and trained them up systematically 
for Heaven. s; Unwavering, unflagging, not 
urged by fits and starts, not heralding forth their 
feelings, but resolutely, simply, perseveringly, 

The multiplication of these services began in the 
Eastern Monasteries, among those who were cut off 
from secular life, and whose time was entirely given 
up to devotion. In this way, these appointed seasons 
were gradually expanded into what were called " the 
Seven Canonical Hours of Prayer." Yet even in 
the fourth century, writers who refer to the Six or 
Seven hours of prayer, speak of the observance of 
the Monks only, and not of the whole body of the 
Church. Such is the case frequently in St. Jerome's 
works. From this beginning, these services were in 
latter ages easily introduced into the principal 
Churches. We believe therefore, that our own 
Church, with the arrangment for daily morning and 
evening prayers, is much nearer the model of 
Primitive times, than those who increased these 
services to Seven (See Bingham, lib. xiii, ch. 9, 
sec. 8). 

We refer here to the public services, for with regard 
to the private devotions of the members of the Church 
we have reason to believe that the vivid picture given 
by Mr. Newman in the extract quoted above, is but 
a faithful view of their ordinary customs. 



THE WEEK-DAY PRAYERS. 115 

day after day, Sunday and week-day, fast day 
and festival, week by week, season by season, 
year by year, in youth and in age, through a life, 
thirty years, forty years, fifty years, in prelude of 
the everlasting chant before the Throne — so 
they went on, ; continuing instant in prayer,' 
after the pattern of Psalmists and Apostles, in 
the day with David, in the night with Paul and 
Silas, winter and summer, in heat and in cold, in 
peace and in danger, in a prison or in a cathe- 
dral, in the dark, in the day-break, at sun-rising, 
in the forenoon, at noon, in the afternoon, at even- 
tide, and on going to rest, still they had Christ 
before them; His thought in their minds, His 
emblems in their eye, His name in their mouths, 
His service in their postures, magnifying Him 
and calling on all that lives to magnify Him, 
joining with Angels in Heaven and Saints in 
Paradise to bless and praise him forever and 
ever" f It was this noble system which raised the 
early church to that height of holiness, and ena- 
bled her to present her followers, as visibly 
crucified to the world. 

But how different at this day is the spirit 
which prevails ! The services of the sanctuary 

/. Newman's Lectures on Justification, p. 387. 



116 THE LENTEN FAST. 

are looked upon too often, as being merely ad- 
dressed to the intellect. We come to it, too 
much to listen to the preaching, and too little to 
commune with our God. We forget, that there 
it is man holds audience with the Deity. The 
consequence is, that while our Churches can be 
filled to listen merely to a human teacher, on 
prayer days there are but few scattered here and 
there, who feel the wish to abase themselves be- 
fore God/ And the reason of this is evident. 
It is easy for individuals, to sit in their seats, and 
listen to the voice of the preacher. He is " unto 
them as a very lovely song of one that hath a 
pleasant voice, and can play well on an instru- 
ment." His sentences fall upon the ear, and it 
is a pleasant excitement, to have the intellect 
aroused, and the imagination addressed, but it is 
not easy to pray. It requires effort, to command 
the wandering thoughts — to shut out an intru- 
sive world — to keep the mind intently fixed on 
God — and to kneel before him with a calm col- 
lected, and awakened soul. To have the con- 
tinual spirit of prayer, is not shown by now and 
then sending up glowing petitions to Heaven, 

g. An old writer quaintly says — " To imagine 
that prayers at home will be as acceptable to God, as 
those made in the Church with our brethren, is as if 



THE WEEK-DAY PRAYERS. 117 

when the mind is for a time excited. It is some- 
thing far different from these paroxysms of devo- 
tion. It is to come daily before God, in a so- 
lemn, serious frame, realizing that He " readeth 
our thoughts, and trieth our hearts," and that 
His saints and angels," 7 * even " a great cloud oi 

one should have fancied, that the incense of the 
Temple (which was a compound of several precious 
gums), made no other perfume than the spices would 
have done, had they been burnt one by one." — Thorn- 
dike. {Bishop Patrick on Prayer, p. 217.) 

h. The Apostle Paul, when declaring (1 Cor. xi, 
10) that a woman should cover her head in time of 
Prayer, " because of the Angels," certainly seems to 
intimate, that at such times these heavenly visitants 
are about us. So at least this passage was looked 
upon by the ancient Christians, and it gave them 
great encouragement to attend upon the public 
Prayers. The same idea is curiously stated by Ori- 
gen in his comments on those words of the Psalmist 

— "the Angel of the Lord encampeth round about 
them that fear Him." " It is probable" — says he 

— "that when many are assembled together sin- 
cerely to the glory of Christ, the angel of every one 
of them there pitcheth his tent, together with him 
who is committed to his charge and custody; so as 
to make a double Church, where the saints are 



118 THE LENTEN FAST. 

witnesses compass us about." This therefore is 
the very discipline we need, and by which the 
Church endeavors to have wrought into our 
souls, the spirit of holiness. 

There is indeed a subduing influence in Prayer, 
which a careless world seems never to know. 
The very sound of " the Church-going bell, " 
speaks to the heart, and recalls us from our 
earthly feelings. As its solemn tones fall upon 
the ear, they seem like a voice from eternity, 
telling us of realities, while we wander in a world 
of shadows. Beautiful therefore was that super- 
stition of the Middle Ages, which ascribed to 
them the power of driving far off the Evil Spirits 
which gather about the path of man, to tempt 
him to sin. As the deep sound of the evening 
bell was heard upon the breeze, and the sweet 
tones of the Vesper Hymn floated indistinctly to 
the traveler's ear, his heart was strengthened 
within him, and he felt, that here at least, where 
that holy sound came, spiritual enemies had no 
power. Yet not entirely was this a superstition. 
The wild legends which embody it teach also a 
deep moral to the thoughtful mind, and one 
which a Poet of our own has set forth, arrayed 

gathered together ; one Church of men, and another 
Church of angels." 



THE WEEK-DAY PRAYERS. 119 

in all that beauty with which genius can invest 
the truth. 

" I have read in the marvellous heart of man, 

That strange and mystic scroll, 
That an army of phantoms, vast and wan, 

Beleaguer the human soul. 

Encamped beside Life's rushing stream, 

In Fancy's misty light, 
Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam 

Portentous through the night. 

But when the solemn and deep Church bell, 

Entreats the soul to pray, 
The midnight phantoms feel the spell, 

The shadows sweep away. 

Down the broad Vale of Tears afar, 

The spectral camp is fled ; 
Faith shineth as a morning star, 

Our ghastly fears are dead."* 

How wise then is that provision of the Church, 
by which she calls us to these oft-recurring 
prayers ! She wishes thus, to render us " meet 
to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in 
lig , ht. ,,) It is for this reason too, that she so fre- 
quently in her Calendar commemorates the holy 

i. Longfellow's Beleaguered City. 



120 THE LENTEN FAST. 

dead, who have already entered into their rest. 
Contracted indeed is the view of this subject 
which so many take, when they enquire, Why 
should we pay this reverence to " men of like 
passions with ourselves ?" And yet do not these 
compose that " noble army," which gathers 
around the Christian pilgrim as he travels on- 
ward, and whom he may well remember as his 
bright examples? Is it not right therefore, as 
the year rolls round, that one by one they should 
meet him in the services of the Church, that he 
may thus be enabled to think of their self-deny- 
ing labors, their holy lives, and their patient suf- 
ferings? The Church in this is but following 
the example of St. Paul, when in the eleventh 
chapter of his epistle, to the Hebrews, he sum- 
mons up, as with a trumpet's voice, name after 
name of those departed worthies who had long 
gone to their reward. And since his day, how 
gloriously has the list been extended, as the Gos- 
pel dispensation presents its holy array of apos- 
tles, and saints, and just men made perfect, until 
the long and bright procession passes before us, 
stirring our hearts up to a holy emulation. 

But their example is not all. It is thus that 
we are reminded also of the dignity of our war- 
fare. The Christian is too apt, in times of de- 



THE WEEK-DAY PRAYERS. 121 

pression, to feel himself a solitary, and it may be, 
a derided traveler. He looks upon himself as 
standing isolated in a hostile world. These ser- 
vices then are like a chain, which connects him 
with the holy dead who have gone before. He 
finds, that he has inherited his privileges from 
martyrs and confessors — from kings of the earth, 
its princes, and its judges, who in their generation 
" fought the good fight," and then were gathered 
into the Paradise of God. His feelings of lone- 
liness pass away. He realizes, that he is one of 
a great company, which embraces in its ranks 
all that is pure and dignified in the universe, 
and his heart rejoices in "the communion of 
saints."' 7 

(i Thus, though oft depressed and lonely, 

All his fears are laid aside, 
If he but remembers only 

Such as these have lived and died." 

And here, we can not forbear quoting from one 
of the most admirable works of this generation — 

/. The thought of the dead makes us gentle and 
child-like, and leads us to forget ourselves, as well it 
may. For we know that according to St. Paul's 
teaching the spirits of just men made perfect are not 
far from us. We are come to them, and they are- 
11 



122 THE LENTEN FAST. 

the only one we know, giving the portraiture of 
a Christian family — a passage showing the man- 
ner in which these Festivals can be profitably 
observed. " For example, I take up the charac- 
ter of St. Peter for my especial meditation, which 
most probably, but for this notice of it by the 
Church, I never should have done ; at least, I 
should have rested content with the vague, tran- 
sitory, and unpractical notions suggested in the 
course of turning over, amid a multitude of others 
in Scripture, the passages which relate to him. 
But now I turn it in every possible light, refer to 
the minutest incident, analyzing and composing, 
till I frame to myself an adequate conception of 
his character. 1 then examine myself by it, and 

come to us. They can touch us, and we can touch 
them ; they are gliding by every hour. The spirit 
has but ceased to act upon and through the body, and 
so we do not see them in their places. They keep 
threading in and out among us, going up and down, 
and moving round about us ; especially, so we believe 
from St. John, in holy Churches where their bodies 
rest in hope. (Rev. vi.) They are the first ranks 
of the Church, who have gone before us in the Lord, 
so far as to be out of sight. They are beyond our 
view. They may see us; we can not see them." — 
Faber's Tracts on the Offices of the Church. 



THE WEEK-DAY PRAYERS. 123 

review his ardent and courageous spirit till I im- 
bibe some portion of it myself, and discuss his 
temporary fall till I arrive at a wholesome fear 
of my own weakness ; and on coming to his 
restoration, so completely do I feel identified 
with him, 1 rejoice and glorify his blessed Mas- 
ter, and my own, as if 1 had been restored to- 
gether with him. And, last of all, I look intently 
upon that death, which according to his Master's 
prediction he underwent, and prepare myself also 
to take up the Cross of my Lord, and fear Him, 
and not man. All these thoughts may have 
passed through my mind often before ; but it was 
in a floating, undirected, unpractical mass, and 
not arranged as now, in clusters, under suitable 
heads, tending to one definite end, and by the 
point given to them, leaving their impression dis- 
tinct and deep, both on memory and feelings. 
Besides, by thus steadily following one train, I 
am led at last, to ideas on the subject, and com- 
binations of ideas which had never before pre. 
sented themselves ; and I experience with the 
increase of my spiritual knowledge an accession 
also of mental wealth. At a due interval ar- 
rives another festival, the centre of attraction to 
another class of thoughts, which had else been 
too loose and vague to produce any impression ; 



124 THE LENTEN FAST. 

these too I fix in permanence. In this manner 1 
am carried round the year; my views grow 
clearer, my resolutions more firm ; such days are 
to me indeed holy days ; in them I find a secure 
repose for my thoughts from the vulgar turmoil 
of the world around, to which I return at least 
refreshed, and I hope 1 may add, improved."* 1 

The Church, it is true, in these services offers 
us no excitement. She never teaches that glow- 
ing devotion, (or what is miscalled devotion,) 
which on Sunday lifts its possessor up to the very 
gates of Heaven, yet during the week is never 
visible in his conduct. Her aim is to instruct us 
in a sober, constant, and Scriptural piety. She 
employs no spiritual whirlwind now and then to 
sweep over her, which when it has subsided, 
leaves her children during the remainder of the 
year, to sink back again to a death-like coldness, 
but she goes on the even tenor of her way, 
steadily building them up in a knowledge of the 
faith. Neither indeed does she present us with 
any novelties, for the prayers and praises in which 
we unite, have been heard in her services a long 
time, some of them for more than fourteen cen- 
turies. 2 They are a precious legacy, bequeathed 

k. Rectory of Valehead, p. 54. 

I. For instance, the prayer of St, Chrysostom, at 



THE WEEK-DAY PRAYERS. 125 

to us by ages which have gone. They are u the 
form of sound words " which our fathers used, 
and with which the dead in Christ were accus- 
tomed to worship a thousand years ago. Thus 
it is, that her voice is lifted up through all the 
changing year, and we are but prolonging that 
anthem of praise, which has always been heard 
in her courts. The very words we utter, carry 
us back to days when the faith of the Church 
was purified by suffering. They connect us in 
thought and Spirit with those of whom the world 
was not worthy, who have long since passed 
away to their reward. 

Again — another reason why every Christian 
should avail himself of these services is, that he 

MAY DRAW DOWN A BLESSING UPON HIS CHURCH. 

We meet at such times, to humble ourselves not 
merely as individuals, but also as a Church. In 
this respect, we have surely much to bewail for 

the close of the service. Also, the Doxologies, the 
Trisagion or cherubical hymn, Holy, Holy, Holy, &c, 
and the Magnificat, The Te Deum has been gener- 
ally ascribed to St. Ambrose, although some learned 
men have disputed this. For a particular account of 
the most noted hymns in use in the service of the 
ancient Church, see Bingham's Orig. Eccles., lib. xiv. 
chap. 2. 

11* 



126 THE LENTEN FAST. 

the time that is gone. Like Israel of old, we too 
may "remember our ways, and be ashamed." 
Compared with the opportunities placed in our 
hand, how little have we done as a Church, to 
advance the cause of pure and undefiled religion ! 
With thousands in our own land straying into 
heresy and schism, and millions on the wastes of 
heathenism tC perishing for lack of knowledge," 
how little through us has the glad news of our 
Redeemer's sacrifice been published through the 
earth, or the sweet incense of His name been 
borne to the hearts of the dying ! Have we not 
sins then as a Church to confess ? And when 
can we more appropriately remember these our 
deficiencies, than when we are preparing to cele- 
brate that sacrifice, around which are gathered 
our own hopes of eternal life, and which was in- 
tended to bring salvation to all who will avail 
themselves of its benefits ! 

If we wish then, that the ultimate triumph of 
the Gospel should not be held back through any 
fault of ours, is it not well that we should call 
upon God for strength, to enable us to fulfill our 
recorded vows, and to realize the interest which 
we have in the spiritual welfare of our race ? 
There is indeed no better instrument than prayer, 
to aid the progress of our Master's cause. When 



THE WEEK-DAY PRAYERS. 127 

we look over the world, and see how iniquity 
abounds, and the love of many waxes cold, we 
feel at times tempted to despond and to let the 
conflict go on. But Scripture teaches us a dif- 
ferent lesson with regard to the power of prayer. 
St. Paul writes to the Thessalonians — " Breth- 
ren ! pray for us, that the word of God may 
have free course and be glorified. " And in ac- 
cordance with this, the Church directs us to offer 
up petitions " for all sorts and conditions of men." 
She even instructs us to pray for spiritual bles- 
sings upon ourselves, only that they may be 
imparted to others also. The language of her 
Evening Anthem is — " God be merciful unto us, 
and bless us, and show us the light of His coun- 
tenance, and be merciful unto us." And why? 
"That Thy way may be known upon earth, Thy 
saving health among all nations." We find 
then, that we also as a Church have, in this res- 
pect a duty to perform with regard to the ad- 
vancement of our faith. 

And here we would remark more particularly 
on the duty of presenting our petitions to God, 
for those who attend with us in the same sanc- 
tuary. When we remember how often the Gos- 
pel is proclaimed in our Churches, and that it is 
God's own appointed means for publishing the 



128 THE LENTEN FAST. 

truth, we can not but ask, Why is it that so few 
receive it ? Why do the majority of those who 
listen, still refuse to be reconciled to our Lord, or 
be numbered with his followers ? Must there 
not be guilt resting on those who " profess and 
call themselves Christians," that they do not pe- 
tition Him to pour out upon our Churches " the 
healthful spirit of His grace?" If the voice of 
prayer were not restrained, we should witness 
no spiritual desolation, but u God, even our God, 
would give us his blessing." Let those then who 
believe that they are " children of the light and 
of the day," think how much they owe to the 
love of Him who hath called them to His service. 
Who made them to differ from the thousands 
around, who are still seeking to draw comfort 
from this vain world, and wasting their strength 
in pursuit of its fleeting shadows ? Who opened 
their eyes to see the solemn realities of eternity, 
and put a new song in their mouth, filling them 
with the rich comforts of His grace ? Let us 
think too of the state of those, who, are still 
without the ark of safety — How blindly they 
are rushing on to an inheritance of woe — how 
they are standing in jeopardy every hour, reck- 
less of the storm which is gathering against 
them — and our sympathies will be awakened in 



THE WEEK-DAY PRAYERS. 129 

their behalf. Then, we shall need no other in- 
ducement to " watch for one hour v with the 
people of God, where prayer is offered up, that 
w r e also may present that appropriate petition — 
" Return, we beseech Thee, O God of hosts : 
look , down from Heaven, and behold, and visit 
this vine, and the vineyard which Thy right hand 
hath planted, and the branch that Thou madest 
strong for Thyself." 

There is one other motive which pleads with 
us, to avail ourselves of the solemnities of this 
Season. It is the truth, that we may not live to 

SEE AGAIN THE RETURN OF THIS PERIOD OF OUR ECCLE- 
SIASTICAL year. This may be our last Lent on 
earth, to herald in either an eternal Festival in 
Heaven, or to be but the prelude to that " lament- 
ation and mourning and woe," in which the 
desolate spirit can look forward to no joyful 
Easter. But the reflection, that life is passing 
rapidly away, and that its continuance is uncer- 
tain, although often brought before us, is still one 
which to most, is any thing but familiar. The 
remembrance of it, as a fact, exerts but little 
practical influence over our thoughts and our 
conduct. We acknowledge it as a general truth, 
and yet silently make an exception in our own 
favor. Let us endeavor then, to bring it home 



130 THE LENTEN FAST. 

to our own hearts and consciences, as a reality 
in which we have a deep and fearful interest. 
And how solemn — how awakening should be 
the effect of the thought, that we may be passing 
through this period of improvement for the last 
time — that when the next year the people of the 
Lord are thus summoned to come up, and make 
ready for the celebration of His Passion, we 
may not hear the call ! Then, our probation 
may have ended — our account be sealed up 
against the Great Day of moral retribution — 
and our graves in the quiet Churchyard, be grow- 
ing green amidst the graves of our kindred. And 
yet, this is possible with all who witness the ser- 
vices of this season, and certain with regard to 
some. It would be strange indeed, if even 
among those who may read these pages, some 
should not be borne to their last resting place 
before twelve months have rolled round. Think 
of those who at this time last year sat in the 
same seats with us in the temple of God, but 
who have now departed forever. Can not mem- 
ory recall the images of some who have since 
then passed from our own little circle to the si- 
lence of the tomb, and whose familiar forms and 
faces we shall see no more, until that mighty 
word goes forth, which heard on sea and land 



THE WEEK-DAY PRAYERS. 131 

shall call up the dust of the sepulchre to new 
life, and mould it again into its ancient shapes ? 
Yes, the Destroyer has been among us, since 
last with joy we sang together our Easter anthem. 
In many a household there have been bitter la- 
mentations for the dead ; and a vacant seat by 
the hearth, and an added tombstone in the Church- 
yard are the sole earthly memorials of some, who 
in the weeks of the last year's Lent were often 
found in the house of God. The loved ones are 
not all here. Smiles of affection which once 
were ready to greet us, and tones which fell like 
music on our ears, have faded away from the 
earth. The dust has claimed its own, and our 
hearts even now turn in sorrow to the place of 
graves, where the dead so silently await our 
coming. 

And of whom shall this history next be writ- 
ten ? Do we all shrink from the question, and 
feel we can not bear to realize, that this may be 
the case with us 1 Do we close our ears, as the 
solemn tones of life's curfew-bell are heard, 
warning us of the gathering night? Oh, let us 
remember, that we have no exemption from this 
common lot, and that the Master may come in 
an hour when we look not for Him. With the 
flush of health upon the cheek, and the vigor of 



132 THE LENTEN FAST. 

manhood in the limbs, we may be unconsciously 
treading the edge of the crumbling precipice, 
about to be launched into Eternity. 

" Time is fleeting, 



And our hearts, though stout and brave, 
Still like muffled drums are beating 
Funeral marches to the grave. " w 

Let the determination then be strengthened 
within us, that while life lasts, we will neglect 
no opportunity of making ready for our solemn 
change — that if it should be decreed in the 
councils of Heaven, that we shall never again 
on earth witness this interesting season in the 
Church, this at least shall not be neglected, but 
we will repair to the House of God, there to pour 
out our souls in the prayer of penitence and faith. 

Are not these then motives enough to induce 
us to take our part in these week-day services? 
Methinks our Lord is thus age after age, even 
from the garden of Gethsemane, lifting up to 
His faithful followers the voice alike of entreaty 
and of agony, saying unto them — " What ! could 
ye not watch with me one hour P 1 And is it not 
our business here, to train ourselves for the cease- 
less worship of Heaven ? Are we then gaining 

tn. Longfellow's Psalm of Life. 



THE WEEK-DAY PRAYERS. 133 

this spirit of prayer which will render us " meet 
to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints 
in light ?" Let us examine our own hearts, and 
scrutinize our affections, lest we may be deceived, 
and the spirituality and holiness of the Christian 
be still wanting in our breasts. Neither is it all 
that is necessary, merely to be bodily present in 
the House of God, for we may at the same time 
u be absent in spirit," and thus in our best ser- 
vices be accumulating guilt He whom we mock 
with the offering of the lips while the heart is far 
from him, will say to us, as^He did to His an- 
cient people — " The calling of assemblies I 
can not away with : it is iniquity, even the 
solemn meeting." The world therefore must be 
shut out — the spirit of devotion must be with 
us — or we are not truly watching with our Lord. 
And should there chance to rest upon these 
pages, the eye of any one who does not profess 
to be a disciple of our once suffering but now 
glorified Master, and who therefore may feel dis- 
posed to pass by this appeal as being in his case 
inapplicable, we would address to him also a 
single inquiry. Have you no need of prayer — 
no necessity for that atonement on the Cross, to 
which these services point us forward ? If such 
are your feelings, the disclosures of a coming day 

12 



134 THE LENTEN FAST. 

will show, that you have been the victim of a 
fatal delusion. We look beyond the few remain- 
ing days of this fleeting life — we stand with our 
fellow men before the bar of God — we behold 
" the Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
world" — but what is the condition of those, 
who have no interest in his Redemption ? For 
them there is no song of triumph — no victor's 
crown. They are arrayed before their Judge in 
speechless despair. The neglected opportunities 
of earth are rising in their memories, and they 
feel that they would give the universe, were it 
possible, for " one hour " of that probation which 
once they trifled away. The future offers to 
them no gleam of hope, but shrinking from " the 
Great White Throne, and the face of Him that 
sitteth thereon, 11 they commence the desolate 
travel of Eternity — lost — undone forever. 

We would entreat you then, O restless and 
disappointed child of immortal^ ! to avail your- 
self of this solemn season, when all things invite 
you to thoughtfulness and prayer. Turn away 
from this decaying, perishing world, whose en- 
chantments only mock your sight, and whose 
promised blessings fade and disappear while you 
seek to grasp them, and gain in their place, u the 
peace which passe th understanding 11 — the calm 



THE WEEK-DAY PRAYERS. 135 

and solid happiness which our faith only can be- 
stow. It is to be found — not in feverish and vain 
desires — not in ihe aspirings of wild ambition — 
not amid the rush and hurry of this busy life — but 
in the whispers of an approving conscience, and 
in silent communion with your God. Come then, 
and in a spirit of earnest supplication, pray Him 
to blot out the dark record of the past, and to 
strengthen you for His service during the years 
which may yet remain to you on earth. Come, 
before life is departing, and the terror-stricken 
soul seeks in vain for a single hour in which to 
make its peace with Him. Come, before the 
darkness of the grave gathers around, and the 
despairing cry is heard — " Woe unto us ! for 
the day goeth away, for the shadows of the 
evening are stretched out." 



@jwr& fritag. 



Low bow'd Thy head convulsed, and droopM in death, 

Thy voice sent forth a sad and wailing cry 5 
Slow struggled from Thy breast the parting breath, 
And every limb was wrung with agony. 
That head whose veiHess blaze 
Filled angels with amaze, 
When at that voice sprang forth the rolling suns on high. 
Milman's " Hymn to the Savior,' 11 



12* 



IV. 



"And they crucified Him." Simple yet so- 
lemn words ! telling in this little expression of 
the most fearful event which has ever taken 
place upon this globe, since at the hour of its 
first creation "the morning stars sang together, 
and all the sons of God shouted for joy, as they 
joined in that glorious jubilee. And how vivid- 
ly does this short sentence bring before us that 
terrible scene — fit conclusion to the long years 
of self-denial and sorrow — when the Son of 
God bowed Himself upon the Cross, and with 
an agony of which no man can conceive, passed 
the gates of Death ! The imagination calls up 
the mighty crowd which had gathered to that 
spectacle — the jibe and scorn of the Jewish 
priests, as they inflamed the bigoted and urged 



140 THE LENTEN FAST. 

on the shrinking — the whirl and roar of scoffing 
thousands, as that living flood poured out from 
the Holy City, and rolled around the^ sacred 
Mount. And far above them, " lifted up to be 
seen of all men," on the only throne which His 
rebellious subjects gave, was the promised Mes- 
siah, hearing even in death their mad ingratitude 
and cruel tauntings. Yet on that patient suffer- 
er's brow, where the inspiration of the Divinity 
and the agonies of Humanity struggled together, 
we may believe, there beamed an expression of 
the loftiest triumph. He felt, that even in disso- 
lution He was winning the noblest victory, and 
gaining immortality for the countless tribes of 
His fellow men. 

As the hours passed on, popular passion was 
stirred up to its wildest excess. The rude uproar 
and furious execrations of myriads filled the 
air, and mingled with the low, deep tones of our 
expiring Master, while He prayed for His ene- 
mies, or commended His soul to God. At length, 
there rang without the walls of Jerusalem that 
last, loud cry, which proclaimed to a wondering 
universe, that all was finished — the mighty 
offering made — and that "through death our 
Lord had destroyed him that had the power of 
death." Then it was, that even inanimate nature 



GOOD FRIDAY. 141 

seemed to sympathise in his struggle. The sun 
veiled its face, and darkness covered the land. 
The earth reeled to and fro, beneath the earth- 
quake's shock. And not on the living only did 
this day of strange revelations produce its influ- 
ence. Even the last resting places of the dead 
were rent asunder, that on the morning of the 
first day they too might come forth with their 
risen Lord. Then, even the bodies of the slum- 
bering saints started from their graves, and glided 
through the city where once they dwelt. Dim 
and livid forms, still wearing the cerements of 
the tomb— bearing yet its fearful impress — in 
this breathing world, yet not of it — they " ap- 
peared to many," as it were, claiming again 
brotherhood with the living, and teaching them 
by their own ghastly presence, the earliest proofs 
of a resurrection. Such were the terrors of the 
first Good Friday. 

Is it strange then, that the members of the 
early Church, with awed and chastened spirits, 
kept this holy day, and felt that deep indeed 
should be their self-abasement at this season of 
their Lord's mysterious agonies? They consi- 
dered it as invested with a peculiar solemnity, 
and even those who might have been negligent 
during the rest of Lent, religiously observed this 



142 THE LENTEN FAST. 

day, as the one on which the Bridegroom was 
taken from them. a And in the same spirit should 
we act now. " On this day " — says Bishop Ho- 
bart — "all the pursuits of business should be 
suspended ; the service of the Church devoutly 
attended; and the intervals of public worship 
devoted to holy meditation on the sufferings of 
Christ, and to other pious exercises. By absti- 
nence, self-denial, and humiliation, we should 
seek to testify our sympathy in the sufferings of 
our Lord, and our lively sorrow for our sins 
which occasioned His sufferings. There can be 
no greater evidence of insensibility and ingrati- 
tude, than to spend the day sacred to the suffer- 
ings of Christ, in the usual pursuits of business 
or pleasure." 

Is he then keeping it as he should, who per- 
haps only escapes from his usual occupation in 
the court room or the counting house, for a sin- 
gle hour to attend the services of the Church ? 
Are his thoughts in a proper state for comme- 
morating his Lord's passion, when he passes at 
once to the sanctuary from the noise and turmoil 
of business, with all its restless and disquieting 
cares about him? And has he profited as he 

a. See Bingham's Orig. Eccles., lib. xxi, ch. 1, 
sec. 1. 



GOOD FRIDAY. 143 

should by these holy services, when he hurries 
back at once to the anxieties of this working 
world? No — let the merchant desert for the 
day, the mart of business — let the professional 
man close his office — and the world will begin 
to believe, that this is a season holy to the Lord. 
Then the words of our Liturgy will come home 
to them with power, and sink into their hearts, 
and they will realize more deeply the mighty 
debt they owe to Him who died for them. 

And how beautifully appropriate are all the 
services which the Church has prescribed for this 
solemn season ! The Psalms for the day, com- 
posed by David in times of sorrow and distress, 
have always been considered as having a still 
higher reference to the sufferings and death of 
Christ. The first lesson for the morning (Gen. 
xxii), by narrating the intended sacrifice of Isaac 
on Mount Moriah, points with the voice of pro- 
phecy to the coming agonies of the Son of God, 
which ages after were to be endured upon the 
same spot ; while the second lesson (John xviii), 
brings a portion of our Lord's sufferings before 
us, in the simple yet touching record of the be- 
loved disciple who was himself a witness. The 
first lesson for the evening (Isaiah lii, ver. 13, 
and chap, liii), contains the most minute and 



144 THE LENTEN FAST. 

striking prophecy of the passion of our Lord, 
which is to be found in the whole range of the 
predictions in the Old Testament, while the 
second lesson (Phil, ii), contrasts the humiliation 
of Christ with his pre-existent dignity, and from 
this example inculcates the virtues of unity and 
humbleness of mind. Such are the truths which 
are now brought before us, and remembering the 
inestimable benefits which we have obtained by 
this one great sacrifice of our Lord, we can not 
but feel that this fast is appropriately named 
Good Friday. The recollections which gather 
around it may be those of sorrow, yet mingled 
with them is the loftiest triumph, for at this pe- 
riod it was that man^s great redemption was 
wrought out. 

The ordinary themes connected with the sa- 
crifice of our Lord are familiar to all who " pro- 
fess and call themselves Christians," and need 
not be discussed in a work of this kind. They 
form the very foundation of all religious teach- 
ing. We will therefore endeavor to bring for- 
ward one point which is generally less under- 
stood— the WITHDRAWAL OF THE DIVINE PRE- 
SENCE FROM THE SUFFERER IN THE HOUR OF HIS 

greatest need. And we have selected this 
from the belief, that it furnishes the most strange 



GOOD FRIDAY. 145 

feature in all the array of His agony. Over- 
whelming as were the sorrows which gathered 
around the Son of Man in the time of His deep- 
est degradation and shame, there were none that 
can be compared with this. When His death 
cry — "My God, my God, why hast thou for- 
saken me ?" — rang in the ears of the astonished 
spectators, it proclaimed that a new and most 
bitter ingredient had been added to His cup of 
misery. 

And here we would observe, that we can 
never fully conceive of the amount of our Lord's 
sufferings. We have not capacity for compre- 
hending their reality and boundless extent. Our 
narrow conceptions can never picture to us the 
unutterable sorrows of an infinite mind. Al- 
though of course His Divine nature suffered not, 
yet its 'very presence and union with his human 
nature, endowed the latter with capabilities of 
agony which no mere mortal could ever possess. 
Even His boundless knowledge — enabling Him 
to look forward with certainty to all that was at 
hand — placed Him in a condition for enduring 
unspeakable anguish of soul. The wide interval 
then which separates us from our Lord, necessa- 
rily renders our views of all that concerns Him, 
partial and defective. "We see but in part," 
13 



146 THE LENTEN FAST. 

and of course, " we know but in part." It is 
one of those subjects of a spiritual nature which 
we can not grasp. As we are unable to attain to 
an understanding of the inconceivable bliss which 
our Lord now inherits, so we can as little explain 
the depth of agony to which once he sank. 
Much must be left to humble faith. We must 
look upon it as a mystery which perhaps in 
another state of being, with enlarged faculties, 
may be clear to us. 

It is for this reason that we are naturally ac- 
customed to dwell most upon the mere physical 
and bodily sufferings of our Lord. These we 
can in some measure imagine. We see the 
Cross erected before us — the torn and agonized 
body — the parching thirst — the crown of thorns 
pressed on the bleeding brow — and the spear 
thrust into the side. All these things a mere 
mortal might endure, and they come therefore 
within the range of our comprehension. But 
beyond this there is a deeper gulf, into which we 
seldom send our thoughts forward. The soul 
also had its sufferings, which we believe no words 
can adequately describe. We gather this from 
the simple narrative of Scripture. When it 
speaks of His mental anguish, the writers seem 
to be aware that all human language is utterly 



GOOD FRIDAY. 147 

insufficient. How strong therefore are the ex- 
pressions they select, and what a depth of mean- 
ing are they evidently endeavoring to express ! 
Their words signify the greatest possible ex- 
tremity of sorrow, and anxiety, and distress. 
"His soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto 
death." A dark cloud gathered over Him. His 
earnest prayer was — "Father, save me from 
this hour." He seems even deprived of those 
consolations which good men usually enjoy in the 
hour of their final struggle, and which enable 
them to triumph in the prospect of approaching 
dissolution. But to what can we ascribe this 
state of despondency to which He was reduced 
except to the withdrawal of the Divine Presence 
by which God has promised to uphold His faith- 
ful children in tribulation, and from the enjoy- 
ment of which His own Son was cut off, when 
" the sorrows of death compassed Him, and the 
pains of Hell gat hold upon Him." 

In attempting then to enlarge our knowledge 
of this mysterious subject, as far as it has been 
revealed by the word of God, we would remark , 
that by the withdrawal of the Divine Presence is 
not \meant, that the intimate union between the 
Divine and human natures was dissolved. When 
on his coming into the world, the Divinity as- 



148 THE LENTEN FAST. 

sumed a mortal body, a union was formed which 
was indissoluble. It subsisted during all His 
toilsome wanderings through Judea, in His want, 
and deprivation, and sorrow, and even on the 
Cross it did not desert Him. It remained, to 
give dignity to His sufferings. It rendered the 
victim worthy to be " a propitiation for the sins 
of the whole world." 6 But it was the comfort- 
able assurance of its presence which was with- 
drawn, in that fearful hour when most it was 
needed. 

If however you ask the way in which this was 

h. Hooker in one place in a single passage puts this 
point in a clear light, when referring to some of the 
ancient controversies with respect to it. ' ' Theodoret 
disputeth, with great earnestness, that * God ' can not 
be said to suffer. But he thereby meaneth Christ's 
Divine Nature against Appollinarius, which held 
even Deity itself passible. Cyril on the other side 
against Nestorius as much contendeth, that whosoever 
will deny ' very God ' to have suffered death, doth 
forsake the faith, which, notwithstanding to hold, 
were Heresy, if the name of God in this assertion 
did not import, as it doth, the Person of' Christ, who 
being verily God, suffered death, but in the flesh, and 
not in that substance for which the name of God is 
given Him." — Eccles. Polity, lib. v, sec. 53. 



GOOD FRIDAY. 149 

done, we answer, we can not tell. God has not 
revealed to us the manner in which it was ef- 
fected. He only informs us, that His crucified 
Son was for a time deprived of the bright beams 
of that Divinity which had taken up its abode 
within Him — that while He still continued to 
be God as well as man, there was no present 
consciousness or feeling of His own perfections. 
It seems as if feeble humanity was left for a time 
to bear alone, the almost insupportable load 
which was crushing it down. Beyond this we 
know nothing. We can not explain the way in 
which the union of the two natures was at first 
formed, nor can we fully comprehend the man- 
ner in which the suspension of the Divine Pre- 
sence took place. We see only its effects, in the 
mental agony which its departure produced. 

The next inquiry then which arises is, with 
regard to the reason of this withdrawal. It was 
evidently, we think, to place our Lord in a situ- 
ation which qualified Him for deeper suffering. 
While the inspirations of the Divinity were burn- 
ing brightly within Him, He could not drink to 
its dregs that bitter cup which was put to His 
lips. There was a consolation and an ineffable 
bliss of which He must be deprived, that He 
13* 



150 THE LENTEN FAST. 

might be enabled to reach the very extremity of 
woe. 

This is a truth which scarcely needs to be en- 
forced. We know that God is the fountain of 
all joy and consolation, and the more nearly we 
are united to Him, the greater is our happiness. 
"In His presence is fullness of joy, and at His 
right hand are pleasures for evermore." It is 
the enjoyment of this bright vision, which im- 
parts such extacy to the saints in glory, and 
should, even for a single moment, a dark veil be 
drawn, cutting them off from its contemplation, 
they would at once droop in sorrow. To our 
Lord therefore, mere bodily sufferings, grievous 
as they were, could have been comparatively but 
of little moment, had He been animated and up- 
held by the presence of the Divinity within. But 
this was not allowed Him, for the grief He was 
to endure was the accumulation of every sorrow 
which could be heaped upon Him — so fearful 
was the ransom to be paid for us. God there- 
fore forsook Him, and He was left in the depth 
of despondency. Such we believe to be the rea- 
son of this mysterious event. It was to qualify 
our Surety, to bear the whole burden which was 
to be laid upon Him, and to say, in the words of 



GOOD FRIDAY. 151 

the ancient prophet— -" Behold and see, if there 
be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is 
done unto me, wherewith the Lord hatfcf afflicted 
me, in the day of His fierce anger." 

Again — let us look at this deprivation to our 
Lord in another respect — its strangeness. It 
was the withdrawal of that which He had ever 
before possessed. Before the world was, even 
through the countless ages of the past eternity, 
His had ever been " the fullness of the Godhead." 
He had ever shared in all that inexpressible de- 
light which must be the attendant of Divinity. 
And even when on earth, we have no reason to 
suppose, that hitherto its beams had been ob- 
scured, or the sensible evidence of its presence 
taken away. The Spirit, we are told, was poured 
out upon Him "without measure," and we read 
in every action which He performed, and in every 
word which He spake, the proof that it was done 
through the promptings of His Higher nature. 
As therefore/the manner of His existence during 
this time is incomprehensible, so also does the 
bliss which it afforded Him, transcend our utmost 
thoughts. But now, for a season this was taken 
away, and the very height of happiness to which 
it had always before raised Him, now deepened 
the woe, to which by its loss He was reduced, 



152 THE LENTEN FAST. 

His feelings could only find utterance in that 
plaintive exclamation which was wrung from 
Him — " Eli, Eli, lama, sabachthani, that is to 
say, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken 
me !" Yet in this you perceive the strangeness 
of the deprivation. He who had been God from 
all eternity, now for the first time felt Himself 
deserted by the present influence of the Deity. 
He felt, that in suffering at least, He was nothing 
but a man. 

Bat let us illustrate this point by something 
more within the sphere of our comprehension. 
Take an angel, who from the moment of his 
creation, has always rejoiced in the presence of 
God, and let the light of his Maker's counte- 
nance be withdrawn from him. Indescribable 
would be the wretchedness which in such a case 
would overwhelm that bright Intelligence, when 
the beatific vision was removed. Yet we think, 
that the darkest feature in his sufferings — that 
which would force him to feel them with the 
greatest intenseness — would be, the very strange- 
ness of his situation — the fact that it was some- 
thing which he had never before experienced. 
Now such, only in an infinitely greater degree, 
was the case with our Lord. For a brief time, 
He was left to suffer alone. It was the very 



GOOD FRIDAY. 153 

climax of His misery — the hour of His deepest 
humiliation, which was soon however to give 
place to joy and triumph. 

But when He now looks back upon it from 
His throne of glory, think you, that any thing 
like regret is felt, for the pain He endured — the 
fiery trial through which He passed ? No — we 
know there can not he. As the number of the 
Elect gather into the Paradise of God, and He 
beholds in these ransomed spirits the prize for 
which He contended, widely different emotions 
must fill His breast. He sees in them " the travail 
of His soul, and is satisfied." He feels no sor- 
row that he trod the wine-press of God's wrath. 
He judges it worth all His trials and sufferings, 
that He should lead up many sons and daughters 
to glory, and therefore He is contented to have 
borne all that He did. He finds an ample re- 
compense in the sight of the happiness of the re- 
deemed, and in the glad rejoicings of the unnum- 
bered millions, who but for His sorrows would 
have been the heirs of eternal woe. 

Again — we would look at this withdrawal of 
the Divine Presence in one other point of view 
— the greatness of the sorrow it occasioned. We 
find no record of any alleviation afforded our 
Master in this hour of intense bitterness. An 



154 THE LENTEN FAST. 

angel was indeed sent down, but we are told, it 
was to " strengthen Him." Not a word is said 
about conferring comfort. It was to endow Him 
with the ability to suffer. Now the truth is an 
obvious one, that just in proportion to the degree 
of holiness we have, will be our delight in the 
presence of God, and of course, the depth also of 
distress we shall feel, when it is withdrawn from 
us. The kingty Poet of Israel could exclaim — 
" My soul thirsteth for Thee, O God ; my flesh 
longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land, where 
no water is." The individual, whose heart has 
been sanctified by the Holy Ghost, will feel that 
the very existence of his spiritual life depends 
upon the continuance of this comfort, and will 
mourn its absence in bitterness. How deep then 
must have been the sorrow of our Lord, who was 
without sin, when this evil befel Him, and He 
was no longer cheered by the Divine presence ! 
We, in the midst of our imperfections and blind- 
ness, can never realize the emotions of a Being 
of perfect holiness, at such a change. It was the 
removal of the sun from the system. It was 
condemning Him to darkness and despair. 

But there was more than the mere withdrawal 
of God's presence. There was also poured out 
upon Him, that just retribution of the Almighty, 



GOOD FRIDAY. 155 

which was merited by the race whose nature He 
had assumed. " He bore our griefs and carried 
our sorrows. He was bruised for our iniquities ; 
the chastisement of our peace was upon Him ; 
and with His stripes we are healed. All we like 
sheep have gone astray ; we have turned every 
one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid 
upon Him the iniquity of us all/' He had 
placed Himself to endure the punishment of 
transgressions, which otherwise would have de- 
scended upon us, and therefore He was weighed 
down by the load of divine justice against sin. 
He stood up to be a Surety, to pay the penalty 
due from fallen man — to bear the curse and 
shame — and He suffered them to the uttermost. 
The very consciousness then of this, must have 
immeasurably aggravated His anguish, when He 
felt its most fearful effect — the Almighty, as it 
were, retiring from Him, and abandoning Him to 
darkness. 

Another necessary consequence of this with- 
drawal was, that it left Him exposed to the ef- 
forts and temptations of the fallen spirits. We 
find, that when Satan first assaulted Him in the 
wilderness, he was easily repulsed, for then our 
Lord was animated with a consciousness of the 
presence of Divinity, and His communion with 



156 THE LENTEN FAST. 

God was uninterrupted. But when this change 
passed over His soul, and He was forsaken by 
the Father, then He was left open and exposed 
to all the arts of the Evil One. The malice and 
subtlety of that fallen spirit — still powerful even 
in his apostacy — were exerted to the utmost, 
and thus literally, " His soul became an offering 
for sin." It was this which He himself intimat- 
ed, when He said to His enemies among the 
Jews — " When I was daily with you in the tem- 
ple, ye stretched forth no hands against me, but 
this is your hour, and the power of darkness." 
As if he had told them — "During the former 
part of my ministry, 1 was shielded by divine 
power. You could effect nothing against me. 
But now, that aid is withdrawn, and you and the 
powers of darkness have your hour to tempt and 
try me. You can wreak your vengeance on my 
body, and my spiritual enemies on my soul." 
We can not indeed tell the extent of influence 
which these apostate spirits are able to exert, but 
we know that it must be great. And we may 
well believe that all the strength of our Great 
Adversary was put forth in his last, decisive 
struggle with the son of God. Once he had 
been foiled, but now the contest was renewed, 
in the very crisis of this world's fate, when its 



GOOD FRIDAY. 157 

salvation was on the eve of completion, and all 
the dearest interests of the countless tribes of 
man were at stake. We may be sure then, that 
no weapon which the Great Enemy of our race 
could wield, was left unemployed. Alone our 
Redeemer passed through the fiery furnace, " and 
of the people there was none with him." Alone 
He baffled his foes, and wrought out that triumph 
in which through all ages His followers are to 
share. 

Such then we believe is the reason, why this 
also was added as the most bitter ingredient in 
the cup of our Master's sorrows — the strange- 
ness of the change to Him — and the greatness 
of the suffering which it caused. Can not we 
perceive therefore in this particular, how widely 
the agonies of our Lord are separated from those 
which could be endured by any mere mortal? 
With the early martyrs, the pain was confined to 
the body. The mind was at peace — nay, more 
than this — was cheered and elevated by the 
sensible comforts of the Spirit, so as to be able, 
even with exultation to encounter death in its 
most fearful forms. It was, the mortal frame 
convulsed with agony, but the spirit departing 
in hope. Yet our Lord was left, desolate and 
forsaken, and in no other way can we account 
14 



158 THE LENTEN FAST. 

for the exceeding sorrow which weighed Him 
down, than by referring it to His agony of mind 
under that additional affliction of which we have 
endeavored to speak. We see then, how utterly 
impossible it is for us to measure the length and 
breadth of His sufferings, when we compare 
them with human feelings and affections. There 
is an unfathomable depth in His mysterious sor- 
row, which places it far beyond our comprehen- 
sion. We can no more understand it, than we 
can the Divine nature. And it was this view of 
the subject which probably induced the ancient 
Greek Church, to insert among the prayers of 
its Liturgy, the appropriate petition — "By 
thine unknown sufferings, O Lord, have mercy 
upon us. ,?c 

But yet this consideration should only awaken 
us to greater gratitude. If his sorrows were in- 
finite, how great the wonder and amazement 
which should fill our minds, when we remember, 
that they were for us ! They were the speaking 
and powerful evidences of that " love of Christ, 
which passeth knowledge." Let us endeavor 
then at present, when the services of the Church 



GOOD FRIDAY. 159 

especially call us to this duty, to meditate upon 
these things, until our holiest affections are kin- 
dled into exercise, and the voice of praise breaks 
forth from our lips. This will be the subject of 
our contemplations in that coming world of bliss 
to which we trust we are hastening forward. 
There, where the treasures of Divine love are 
unfolded before us, we shall find in the sufferings 
of the Son of God, a theme to which the heart 
will ever return with deepened interest as the 
ages of eternity roll by. Let us begin then 
now, to anticipate the employments of the hea- 
venly world. We can (to use the beautiful 
imagery of Bunyan ), ascend the Delectable 
Mountains, and from afar, by the strong eye of 
faith catch a glimpse of the portals of the Celes- 
tial City, and as the anthem of its shining inhabit- 
ants floats softly to our ear, strive even now, to 
add our voices to their glorious melody. We 
know the burden of that " new song," and while 
still in our earthly state, may familiarize our 
minds with it. As the years of our pilgrimage 
pass away, and the time of our final retribution 
draws nigh, we can learn to meditate with delight 
upon that sacrifice, through the unspeakable ago- 
nies of which, we have attained all our hopes of 
pardon here and of glory hereafter. 



160 THE LENTEN FAST. 

Here then is our trust Our Lord hath met 
the King of Terrors — hath died — hath passed 
the portals of the tomb. " Through death He 
destroyed him that had the power of death." It 
was breaking his sceptre, and depriving him of 
all claim to the countless millions who else 
would have been his prey. Why then should 
human nature shrink back in dread from the 
path, over which the Master hath trodden ? 
Why should we so often stand " shivering on 
the brink, afraid to launch away? " Why should 
we array the Last Messenger who releases us 
from our warfare, with every attribute of terror, 
till the heart quails at his approach? JEven 
from the twilight knowledge of an ancient and 
heathen philosophy, we may learn a better les- 
son. There he was represented as but the twin 
brother of Sleep, as if he only called us to a 
slumber deeper and longer than that which each 
night overtakes us. There, in the lands in 
which this mythology prevailed, on many a 
mouldering tomb is still found the sculptured 
image of the Angel of Death, and we behold 
him in the form of a youth, his wings folded in 
repose, and his torch inverted. All is serene, 
peaceful and beautiful. 

Surely then the Christian, to whom all is cer- 



GOOD FRIDAY. 161 

tainty, may well say, "Death is swallowed u p 
in victory." Trusting in no dim speculations, he 
" knows in whom he has believed, and that He 
is able to keep that which he has committed to 
Him against that day." Standing by the Cross 
on Calvary, the darkness rolls away from the 
landscape which stretches out before him, and 
he sees his path plainly marked. It passes indeed 
through the wilderness, and down into the dark 
valley of the Shadow of Death, and over thie 
troubled waters of Jordan, yet he traces it up to 
the gates of the New Jerusalem — the Eternal 
City of his God. This then is his hope, which 
should enable him to greet the Monarch of the 
Tomb with a calmness which no earthly philoso- 
phy could ever give. He realizes that " through 
the grave and gate of death he shall pass to his 
glorious resurrection, for His merits, who died, 
and was buried, and rose again for us, Jesus 
Christ our Lord." d 

But yet, all our thoughts are not those of joy 
and triumph when we dwell on this great Sacri- 
fice. Sorrowful emotions also mingle with them. 
If every promise of eternal life is bound up in the 
crucifixion of our Lord, then what must we think 
of those, who seek no interest in His Redemp- 

d. Collect for Easter-Even. 
14* 



162 THE LENTEN PAST. 

tion ? In vain for them were the sufferings * — the 
scourge — the nails — and the Cross — for they 
have rejected the precious inheritance which thus 
was purchased for the fallen sons of men. " In 
vain " did we say ? It was more than this. These 
thrilling scenes will add a deeper horror to their 
condemnation, for in this manner the means of 
safety were placed within their reach, but they 
rejected it, and trampled the blood of the cove- 
nant beneath their feet. As they contemplate 
then the sorrows of our Lord, let them think 
whether that misery can light, to redeem from 
which He consented to suffer so fearfully. Let 
them remember the intensity ' of His"agony, when 
He uttered the plaintive exclamation — "My 
God ! my God I why hast Thou forsaken me^ — 
and the view may awaken them from their 
deathlike apathy. 

In a different spirit indeed, this same cry has 
often been uttered since, by thousands in their 
dying hour. This bitter lamentation has quivered 
on the lips of many a sinner, as the shadows of 
the grave gathered around him. It was not, as 
with our Lord, the temporary withdrawal of God's 
favor, but his everlasting departure. He forsook 
the infatuated mortal who had sinned away his 
day of grace, that he might reap the retribution 



GOOD FRIDAY. 163 

which his own deeds had worked out. With him, 
this agonizing cry was the wail of a lost spirit, as 
its ceaseless woe was commencing. It was 
quenching the last ray which brightened his path, 
leaving the desolate immortal to begin the travel 
of Eternity in darkness and despair. 

Thus it is, that from every side of us there 
comes a voice of entreaty and of warning. Not 
from the word of God alone —not from the Cross 
of His son — are the only incitements to Christ- 
ians' earnestness to be drawn. The wakeful, 
spiritual eye may read their solemn appeals in 
many a scene which meets us as we journey on 
our daily path. From the parting agonies of 
each careless wanderer from his Lord, as he 
enters eternity " not knowing the things which 
shall befall him there," is heard the startling 
warning — "Be watchful, O pilgrim through an 
evil world — gird up thy loins and hasten on- 
ward — be earnest, be diligent — for the work to 
be accomplished is great, while the day is passing 
away, and the shadows of the evening are 
stretching forward." 



€uttx tite 



At length the worst is o'er, and Thou art laid 

Deep in thy darksome bed-, 
All still and cold beneath yon dreary stone 

Thy sacred form is gone*, 
Around those lips where power and mercy hung 

The dews of death have clung; 
The dull earth o'er Thee, and thy foes around 
Thou sleep'st a silent corse, in funeral fetters wound. 

Keble's Eatttr Eve, 



V. 



We have now reached the last of those appro- 
priate services in which the Church calls us to 
unite during this solemn Season. When for 
weeks we had chastened our souls by fasting and 
prayer, that we might be prepared to contem- 
plate the fearful agonies of the Son of God, we 
were led by the services of Passion Week to the 
Hill of Calvary, and there beheld our Lord ex- 
piring on the Cross. But to-day a new scene in 
this fearful Tragedy is unfolded before us. The 
crucifixion is over — the Son of Man has passed 
the gates of Death — His body been pierced by 
the soldier's spear, to render it certain that no 
life remained — and then, the inanimate remains 
given by Pilate to Joseph of Arimathea, to be 
buried as he would. They have been deposited 



168 THE LENTEN FAST. 

in his own new tomb in the garden — the stone 
sealed — and the Roman guard placed around it, 
u lest His disciples come by night, and steal Him 
away." There they are resting, while many are 
looking anxiously for the things that should come 
after. 

Strange indeed must have been " the search- 
ings of heart," which took place among those 
who thus awaited in trembling expectation, the 
further developments of this mystery. With 
the disciples it was indeed a day of trouble and 
suspense, when conflicting emotions filled their 
minds. They scarcely could have known what 
to think or believe. Confiding in the Messiah- 
ship of their Lord, as they witnessed His oft re- 
peated miracles, they had " trusted that this Je- 
sus was He who should have redeemed Israel." 
Yet now their lofty hopes, both for themselves 
and for their nation, seemed to be interred in His 
sepulchre. " Slow of heart," they could not yet 
reconcile the facts of His sufferings and His tri- 
umph, or learn that the Redeemer was to pass 
on to His kingly throne through the furnace of 
affliction. 

And on Mount Moriah, and even within the 
precincts of the temple, there must also have 
been anxious and excited hearts. The rites of 



EASTER EVEN. 169 

that Jewish Sabbath were kept as usual — clouds 
of incense filled the Sanctuary — the smoke of 
the morning and evening sacrifice rose in the air 
above the Holy City — and countless thousands 
of worshipers as heretofore thronged the courts. 
Yet among those crowds must there not have 
been many who thought with fear on the deeds 
of the previous day, and now shuddered at the 
remembrance of that terrible prayer their own 
lips had uttered — His blood be on us and on 
our children ?" Even the priests and rulers must 
have trembled at the recollection of their own 
successful violence. They could not forbear to 
connect His death with the unusual signs which 
had convulsed all nature. In the very recesses 
of the Temple, the veil was rent by no mortal 
hands, and the sacred mysteries of the Holiest 
exposed to view — a fearful evidence that the 
Divinity was forsaking His accustomed abode. 
Did they behold these things without dismay ? 
Did they minister as usual with untroubled minds? 
Did the former infatuation continue, and the tri- 
umph of having removed a rival who led away 
the people from them, sustain their courage 
amidst all these mysterious occurrences ? We 
san] not believe it. " That Sabbath day was an 
15 



€ 



170 THE LENTEN FAST. 

high day," yet it was no time of festive joy with 
the rulers of the Jewish nation. 

And could we have looked into the spiritual 
world, and beheld those ranks of fallen angels 
who carry on a ceaseless warfare against Him, 
whose praises once they sang with harp and an- 
them, we believe that there also dismay would 
have been seen. The long years of temptation 
and conflict with the Messiah were over, and 
these His mightiest enemies — to work whose 
will the Priests and Sadducees were but instru- 
ments — had apparently triumphed when they 
silenced His voice forever. Yet in this, the mo- 
ment of seeming victory, must not the Arch- Ad- 
versary have felt a consciousness of defeat, as 
the exclamation, "It is finished," proclaimed to 
him not only that the sufferings of the Son of 
God were over, but also that his own sceptre 
was broken, and the fancied sovereignty forever 
wrested from his grasp ? May not the truth 
have then first dawned upon a waiting universe, 
that Christ having " died for our sins," was 
about to be " raised up again for our justifica- 
tion ?" We can not speak of these things with 
certainty ; yet when we remember the intense 
interest with which all orders of spiritual beings 
marked the unfolding of this mighty scheme of 



EASTER EVEN. 171 

redemption, we may well believe that its con- 
summation must have fallen with a crushing 
weight upon those apostate angels who had been 
striving to defeat it, and at the same time awa- 
kened to its loftiest exercise, the joy and adora- 
tion of the myriads who still gathered about the 
throne. 

It is this interval of suspense — this time of 
doubt and fear among men — when the body of 
our Lord was still in the tomb, and His soul had 
gone to " the place of departed spirits " — that 
is known as Easter Even. It is the Saturday, 
between the day of the crucifixion, and the morn- 
ing of Easter Sunday. In the early Church it 
was kept as a solemn fast, being the only Satur- 
day throughout the year which was thus ob- 
served, for even in Lent this day was a festival 
together with the Lord's day which followed. 
Thus we find it ordered in the Apostolic Constitu- 
tions, as being in accordance with the established 
custom of the Church in that age — " Let as 
many as are able, fast the Friday and the Sab- 
bath," (that is Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath) 
" throughout, eating nothing till the cock-crow- 
ing in the morning. But if any can not join both 
days together in one continued fast, let him how- 
ever keep the Sabbath a fast, for the Lord speak- 



172 THE LENTEN FAST. 

ing of Himself said, 4 when the Bridegroom shall 
be taken away from them, in those days shall 
they fast/ " a 

The night of this day, as (we learn from the 
next chapter of the Apostolic Constitutions), was 
spent as a solemn Vigil, when they assembled 
together for the performance of divine service, 
reading the Scripture, prayer, and preaching. 
There they continued until midnight, and many 
even remained until the cock-crowing. " It was 
a tradition among the Jews " — says St. Jerome — 
" that Christ would come at midnight, as He did 
upon the Egyptians at the time of the Passover. 
Thence, I think, the Apostolical Custom came, 
not to dismiss the people on the Paschal Vigil be- 
fore midnight, expecting the coming of Christ ; 
after which time presuming on security, they keep 
the day a festival." 6 At a later period, when the 
Church had vanquished the power of ancient 
Paganism, and begun to put on her robes of 
power, this Virgil was kept with great pomp. 
Constantine — as Eusebius tells us, in his life of 
that emperor — " set up lofty pillars of wax to 
tmrn as torches all over the city, and lamps burn- 

a. Patres. Apos. Cot el vol. i, p. 325. 

b. Bingham's Orig. EccUs, lib. xxi, chap. 1, sec. 32. 



EASTER EVEN. 173 

ing in all places, so that the night seemed to out- 
shine the sun at noon-day/'' 

The Church has therefore still continued to 
command the observance of this day, although 
the state of society and the forms of life in this 
age require that the manner in which it is done 
should be modified. c The services which have 
been provided, are marked by the same wisdom 
which can be discerned in all the arrangements 
of our venerable Church. In the beautiful Col- 
lect for the day, we offer up our humble petitions, 
" that as we are baptised into the death of our 
blessed Savior Jesus Christ, so by continual 
mortifying our corrupt affections, we may be 
buried with him ; and that through the grave and 
gate of death we may pass to our joyful resur- 

c. The writer has been accustomed for several 
years, to hold the last Lent service on Easter Even, 
at 5 p. m„ and believes that not one among the week- 
day services of the Church is better calculated to 
arrest the attention. That Vesper hour of quiet, 
when the cares of the busy week are over, in the 
waning twilight, as the day is softly fading into 
darkness, seems naturally to harmonize with our feel- 
ings of devotion. Then, in solemn meditation we 
can look back at the services which are gone, and for- 
ward to the great Festival of the morrow. 

15* 



174 THE LENTEN FAST. 

rection, for His merits, who died and was buried, 
and rose again for us, Jesus Christ our Lord." 
The Epistle, from St. Peter, containing that mys- 
terious passage concerning our Lord's " preach- 
ing unto the spirits in prison," seems evidently 
selected by the Church as referring to the condi- 
tion of His soul during this period ; while the 
Gospel clearly describes His burial, and the care 
that was taken to "make the sepulchre sure, 
sealing the stone, and setting a watch." 

With the future history of our Lord's body, 
we are all well acquainted. We know how on 
the next morning He burst the bands of death, 
and came forth from the tomb, and then after 
mingling with His disciples for forty days, as- 
cended up visibly into Heaven. But the question, 
Where was the human soul of our Master during 
this period ? is one which most of His followers 
are not so well prepared to answer. We reply 
therefore, it was in the intermediate state, and 
to a discussion of this subject we intend to de- 
vote the remainder of these pages. We have 
selected it, because although one mosf important 
to us, there is probably no truth asserted in the 
Creed, which is so little understood. 

The faith of the Church then with respect to 
the doctrine is briefly this — that while the hour 



EASTER EVEN. 175 

of death decides irreversibly the condition of the 
spirit, so that Ct they which are holy will be holy 
still," and for the wicked there will remain no 
more sacrifice for sin, neither can it be purged 
away by offering for ever, yet the just do not at 
once enter into Heaven, nor do the lost descend 
immediately to their eternal prison. They go to 
an intermediate state, where they await the last 
judgment. There indeed the righteous are in 
happiness, and the wicked in misery, through all 
the ages which intervene; yet the one can not 
have "the fullness of joy, 1 v nor the other suffer 
the extremity of their destined misery, until their 
souls are once more united to their bodies. This 
takes place at the second coming of our Lord. 
At that time, the spiritual and earthly parts of 
our nature will be again brought into union, and 
the mighty army of the dead gather before the 
Great White Throne. Then, the Books will be 
opened — the final sentence be pronounced — the 
gates of Heaven, and the dreary prison house of 
the lost, unclose to receive their appointed occu- 
pants — and the spirits of all who have ever 
lived, commence the travel of Eternity. 

In endeavoring to state the proofs on which 
we rest our believe in this doctrine, we naturally 
turn first to the inspired word of God. For, as 



176 THE LENTEN PAST. 

Lord Bacon has well remarked — " A knowledge 
of the soul must in the end be bounded by reli- 
gion, or else it will be subject to deceit and delu- 
sion : for as the substance of the soul in the cre- 
ation was not extracted out of the mass of hea- 
ven and earth by the benediction of a 'producat,' 
but was immediately inspired by God, so it is not 
possible that it should be otherwise than by acci- 
dent, subject to the laws of Heaven and earth, 
which are the subject of philosophy ; and there- 
fore the true knowledge of the nature and state 
of the soul, must come by the same inspiration 
that gave the substance." ^ 

We learn then most plainly from Scripture, 
that the souls of the just do not, (as some in all 
ages have vainly imagined,) sleep with their bo- 
dies in utter insensibility, until the morning of 
the resurrection. Every intimation there given 
us with regard to our spiritual nature, confirms 
the truth which reason teaches, that " conscious- 
ness must be a necessary attribute of a spirit in 
a disembodied state." Samuel was summoned 
up from his place of repose, evidently returning 
reluctantly to the cares of this world, and his 
inquiry was — " Why hast thou disquieted me, to 

d. Advancement of Learning. Bacon's Works, 
vol. ii, p. 170, Montague's edit. 



EASTER EVEN. 177 

bring me up?" Every circumstance of the nar- 
rative too shows, that the spirit of Samuel was 
truly evoked. Saul evidently believed it, and 
the sacred penman records it, as if stating an 
actual occurrence. "And Saul" — says he — 
"perceived that it was Samuel," and "Samuel 
said," etc. The son of Sirach also, who is 
thought to have written two centuries before the 
Christian era, expresses himself on this topic 
with the same unhesitating confidence. After 
giving a brief account of Samuel's life and cha- 
racter, he adds — "And after his death he pro- 
phesied and showed the King his end, and lift 
up his voice from the earth in prophecy, to blot 
out the wickedness of the people." 6 Josephus 
too in relating the story, does not betray the 
slightest suspicion that it was not in truth the 
soul of Samuel conversing with Saul/ We are 
warranted therefore from this circumstance, not 
only in drawing an inference that the souls of 
the departed are in a state of consciousness, but 
also that this was an article in the popular creed 
of the Jewish nation. In the same way Moses 
and Elias appeared on the Mount of Transfigura- 

e. Eccles. xlvi, 20. 

/. Antiq. lib. yi, ch. 15. 



178 THE LENTEN FAST. 

tion, and " talked with our Lord, 1 ' as being 
spirits evidently endowed with all those powers 
which reason teaches us must belong to them. 

The same truth is taught by the Apostle Paul, 
when he asserts — " We are confident, I say, and 
willing rather to be absent from the body, and 
to be present," (or conversant) ." with the Lord." 
And again he declares — "For I am in a strait 
betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be 
with Christ ; which is far better." He thus 
plainly shows us, that the righteous when " ab- 
sent from the body," are not in a state of insen- 
sibility, but conversant with their Lord — in a 
situation where they enjoy a degree of communion 
with Him which they can no! have while still in 
this state of probation. The Apostle did not in- 
deed mean, that at death his spirit should at 
once pass into that Heaven to which his Lord 
had ascended, for in another place he speaks of 
" the crown of righteousness" being " laid up 
for him," not to be bestowed until that Great 
Day when his Master should sit as " the righte- 
ous Judge," and he should receive it in company 
with "all them also that love His appearing." 
" The word svS^tfai should be rendered" — says 
Dr. Bloomfield — " not to he present with, but 
(agreeably to the metaphor), to be at "home with, 



EASTER EVEN. ' 179 

implying communion with Him/' Even while 
St. Paul was alive, he was with Christ, and 
Christ was with him, but the felicity for which 
he hoped at death was a nearer access to Him, 
and a greater communication of His favor. He 
should behold His glory, though not in that full 
brightness wherein it shall be seen at the day of 
His final appearing. 

This brings us then to the question we would 
investigate. If the soul is to be in a state of 
consciousness when it has left the body, whither 
does it go ? Where is its place of abode ? This 
inquiry is best answered by considering the cir- 
cumstances connected^ with our Lord's death, 
since we are to follow in the same path in which 
He trod. Whither then did His soul depart? 
Can we believe (as Calvin asserted), that He 
went down to the place of torment, and there 
endured the pains of a reprobate soul in punish- 
ment X 9 The mind shrinks back with horror at 

g. " It was necessary for him to contend with the 

powers of hell and the horror of eternal death 

Therefore it is no wonder, if he be said to 

have descended into hell, since he suffered that death 
which the wrath of God inflicts on transgressors. 

The relation of those sufferings of 

Christ, which were visible to men, is very properly 



180 THE LENTEN FAST. 

the thought, unsupported as the notion is by any 
intimation in Scripture, and directfy refuted by 
our Lord's own declaration to his penitent com- 
panion in suffering. Did his spirit ascend at 
once to Heaven, and remain there during the 
three days which intervened before His resurrec- 
tion ? This could not be, for He afterwards said 
explicitly to Mary Magdalene — "Touch me not, 
for I am not yet ascended to my Father." He 
remained forty'days with His disciples upon the 
earth, before He departed visibly into Heaven. 
The necessary conclusion therefore to which we 
must come is, that He went to some place en- 
tirely distinct either from the Heaven of rest, or 
the prison of final torment. That place was 
Paradise, as He declared to the penitent thief — 
* To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise. 11 

What then did the Jews understand by Para- 
dise ? We reply — with them it primarly refer- 

followed by that invisible and incomprehensible ven- 
geance which he suffered from the hand of God; in 
order to assure us that not only the body of Christ 
was given as the price of our redemption, but that 
there was another greater and more excellent ransom, 
since he suffered in his soul the dreadful torments of 
a person condemned and irretrievably lost." Insti* 
lutes, Book ii, chap xvi, sec. 10. 



EASTER EVEN. 181 

red to the Garden of Eden, where Adam dwelt 
in his state of innocence. But as this was a 
type of all that was pleasant and delightful, they 
used the same word also symbolically to repre- 
sent that place of happiness in which the just 
await their resurrection. " Paradise " — says 
Parkhurst — " is in the New Testament, applied 
to the state of faithful souls between death and 
the resurrection.' 1 Hence it was the solemn 
good wish of the Jews, (as we learn from the 
Talmudists), concerning a departed friend, " Let 
his soul be in the Garden of Eden," or " Let 
his soul be gathered into the Garden of Eden." 
And in their prayers for a dying person, they 
were accustomed to say, " Let him have his por- 
tion in Paradise, and also in the world to come." 
In this form " Paradise " and " the world to 
come." are plainly referred to, as being two 
separate places and states of existence.* The 
same distinction is also made by St. Paul, when 
in speaking p of different visions and revelations 
he had received, he mentions one in " the third 
Heaven," and another in " Paradise."* Dr. 
Doddridge, the celebrated Presbyterian divine* 

h. Bishop Bull's Works, vol.i, p. 98. 
i. 2. Cor. xii, 4, 6. 
16 



182 THE LENTEN FAST. 

in his Family Expositor, thus parphrases this 
passage — " Such an one, I say, I did most inti- 
mately know, who was snatched up into the 
third Heaven, the seat of divine glory and the 
place where Christ dwelleth at the Father's 
right hand, having all the celestial principalities 

and powers in humble subjection to Him 

And I know that, having been entertained with 
these visions of the third Heaven, on which good 
men are to enter after the resurrection, lest he 
should be impatient under the delay of his part 
of the glory there, he was also caught up into 
Paradise, that garden of God, which is the seat 
of happy spirits in the intermediate state, and du- 
ring their separation from the hody" To this 
place then it was that our Lord's spirit went, 
and there He promised that His suffering com- 
panion on the Cross should be also. 

" Where'er Thou roam'st, one happy soul, we know, 

Seen at thy side in woe, 
Waits on Thy triumph— -even as all the blest 

With him and Thee shall rest. 
Each on his cross, by Thee we hang awhile, 

Watching Thy patient smile, 
Till we have learn'd to say, ' >Tis justly done, 
Only in glory, Lord, Thy sinful servant own/ ,v 

j. Keble's Easter Eve. 



EASTER EVEN. 183 

In the same way, while Paradise denotes that 
portion of the intermediate state which was al- 
lotted to the just, there was also a part in which 
the condemned awaited in misery the coming of 
the day of doom. This was known by the name 
of Tartarus. The general term for both these 
places was the Hebrew word Sheol, or as it is in 
the Greek, Hades, while the word Gehenna was 
used to signify the place of eternal torments 
after the resurrection.* By translating Hades 
therefore by the English word Hell in our Bibles, 
we often entirely obscure the meaning.* Such is 

k. As the object of the writer is to give, if possi- 
ble, a simple and popular view of this subject which 
is so little understood, a critical investigation of the 
meaning of these words would be out of place in 
these pages. The reader will find this examination 
carried out in Bishop Hobart's w r ork on the state of 
the Departed. 

Z. " It is a great pity," — says Wall, (Hist. Inf. 
Bap. part n. chap, viii,) — " that the English trans- 
lators of the creed and of the Bible, did not keep the 
word Hades in the translation, as they have done 
some original words which had no English words an- 
swering to them. By translating it Hell, and the 
English having no other word for Gehenna, (which 
is the place prepared for the devil and the damned), 



184 THE LENTEN FAST. 

the case with that passage in the sixteenth Psalm 
which refers prophetically to our Lord — " For 
thou will not leave my soul in Hell,'' (that is in 
Hades, or the intermediate state), " neither wilt 
thou suffer thy Holy One to see corruption." 
This text indeed shows so plainly, that while 
our Lord's body was in the grave, His soul was 
in some place called Hades, " that none but an 
infidel " — saith St. Augustin — u can deny it." 
It is in Hades that Isaiah has placed that strange 
dramatic scene, which is found in the fourteenth 
chapter of his prophecies. As Homer in the 
Odyssey (lib. xxiv) sends the souls of the suitors 
to Hades, where they meet the spirits of Achilles, 
Agamemnon, and the other Grecian heroes they 
had known in life, the Hebrew prophet with the 
higher inspiration of truth, has given a descrip- 
tion which for its inimitable grandeur nothing in 
the pages of classical antiquity can equal. He 
shows the proud King of Babylon, after he had 
been brought to the grave, entering Sheol, while 
the monarchs of the earth who had preceded him 
to the land of spirits, are poetically represented 
as rising from their seats at his approach, greet- 
ing him with bitter scorn — 

than the same word Hell likewise, it has created a 
conftision in the understanding of English readers." 



EASTER EVEN. 185 

" Hades (Sheol) from beneath is moved because of 

thee, to meet thee at thy coming: 
He roused up for thee the mighty dead, all the great 

chiefs of the Earth : 
He maketh to rise up from their thrones, all the kings 

of the nations. 
All of them shall accost thee, and shall say unto thee : 
Art thou, even thou too, become weak as we ? Art 

thou made like unto us ? 
Is then thy pride brought down to the grave; the 

sound of thy sprightly instruments ? 
Is the vermin become thy couch, and the earthworm 

thy covering ? 
How art thou fallen from Heaven, Lucifer, son of 

the morning ? 
Art cut down to the earth, thou that didst subdue 

the nations ?" 

Bishop Lowth's translation. 

It is in Tartarus that the fallen angels also 
await their sentence. St. Peter tells us « — " God 
spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them 
down to Hell (Tartarus), and delivered them 
into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judg- 
ment. " And St. Jude says — " The angels which 
kept not their first estate, but left their own 
habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains 
under darkness unto the judgment of the great 

16* 



188 THE LENTEN FAST. 

day." In Tartarus too was the rich man, while 
Lazarus was in Paradise. Dr. Campbell, another 
learned Presbyterian divine, and formerly Prin- 
cipal of Marischal College, Aberdeen, says — 
u There is no inconsistency in maintaining that 
the rich man, though in torment, was not in 
Gehenna, but in that part of Hades called Tar- 
tarus, where we have seen already that spirits 
reserved for judgment are detained in dark- 
ness According to this explication, the 

rich man and Lazarus were both in Hades, 
though in very different situations, the latter in the 
mansions of the happy, and the former in those of 
the wretched." m 

m. Prelim. Dis. vi, part 2. As the charge is often 
made against the Church, that she retains this Popish 
doctrine, we quote occasionally from distinguished 
Presbyterian writers, showing that they also have 
been forced to acknowledge its truth. On this point, 
no one is more explicit than President Dwight of 
Yale College. In his system of Theology, (Sermon 
clxiv.) he says — " There can, I apprehend, be no rea- 
sonable doubt concerning an intermediate state. St. 
Peter says of the angels that sinned, that * God cast 
them down to Hell, and delivered them into chains 
of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.' St. Jude 
also declares them * to be reserved,' in like manner, 



EASTER EVEN. 187 

The manner in which the general judgment is 
always mentioned, may well confirm our belief 
in the doctrine of an intermediate state. When 
is there to be " rendered to every man according 
to his works?" When, in other words, is each 
one to reap his full retribution ? Is it the mo- 
ment he has passed the gates of death and put off 
this mortal body ? This would be by no means 
in accordance with the declarations of Holy 
Writ. If we examine its promises, we shall 

1 unto the judgment of the great day.' From these 
declarations it is manifest, that fallen angels have not 
yet received their final judgment, nor, of course, their 
final reward. This, indeed, seems evident from the 
phraseology used by St. Peter, as well as by the de- 
clarations of both him and St. Jude. The word which 
is rendered from St. Peter, ' cast them down to Hell,' 
is in the Greek, raprapwtfas ; literally rendered, ' cast 
them down to Tartarus.' While this phraseology 
plainly declares a place of punishment, it indicates 
directly a different state from that, which is taught 
by the word ysswa, (Gehenna,) the appropriate name 
of Hell in the Scriptures. After the rich man died 
and was buried, it is said by our Savior, 'he lifted up 
his eyes in Hell, being in torments; in the Greek, 
sv tw *a($y], in Hades The state, in which La- 
zarus was placed, is denoted elsewhere by the word 



188 THE LENTEN FAST. 

meet with no offer of perfect blessedness which 
is to be fulfilled before our Lord's second coming. 
He himself on one occasion declared — " Thou 
shalt be recompensed " — when ? " at the resur- 
rection of the just." The final reward of the 
righteous is always referred to the last day, at 
" the glorious appearing of the great God and 
our Savior, Jesus Christ " — " when Christ who 
is our life shall appear " — " when the Son of 
Man shall come in the glory of His Father, 

Paradise. ' To-day,' said our Savior to the thief on 
the cross, i thou shalt be with me in Paradise.' But 
we know from our Savior's own declaration, that 
when he gave up the ghost on the cross, his spirit 

went, not to Hell, but to Hades or Sheol 

The thief therefore went to the state which is denoted 
by this word, and not to that which is denoted by 
Heaven, unless this world is supposed to include 
Heaven." 

We might also bring forward the opinions of dis- 
tinguished divines of other denominations. For ex- 
ample, John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist 
Society, avows the doctrine clearly in his Notes on 
the New Testament. See on Luke xxiii, 43. 2 Cor. 
xii, 4. Rev. i, 18. Rev. xx, 15. So also one of his 
followers, Dr. Adam Clark. See in his Commentary 
on Heb, xi, 40, Rev. xv, 13, 14. 



EASTER EVEN, 189 

with His holy angels." Then it is that He 
shall recognize | His faithful followers before 
an assembled universe, and receive them to reign 
with Himself in glory. It is not indeed until the 
solemn scenes of the judgment are over, that His 
own chosen Apostles will be admitted to that 
place, where they shall enjoy in its fullness, the 
presence of Him in whose footsteps they followed 
on earth. His declaration was — "I go to pre- 
pare a place for you. And if I go and prepare 
a place for you, I will come again, and receive 
you unto myself, that where I am there you may 
be also." But the time of His promised return 
has not yet arrived. His followers therefore 
have not yet entered into their final rest, nor will 
they, until He " comes again to receive them unto 
Himself. 

Still stronger is the inference to be drawn 
from that declaration of St. Paul — u For this 
we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that 
we which are alive and remain unto the coming 
of the Lord shall not prevent them which are 
asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from 
Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the arch- 
angel, and with the trump of God ; and the dead 
in Christ shall rise first. Then we, which are alive 
and remain? shall be caught up together with 



190 THE LENTEN FAST. 

them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air : 
and so shall we ever be with the Lord." n Here 
is an explicit account of the order in which each 
event shall take place at the last judgment. We 
learn from it then, that none have as yet entered 
into Heaven. If it were not so, but the just, as 
each individual soul passed from the earth, had 
gone at once to that place of glory, what mean- 
ing would there be in the Apostle's declaration, 
that they which are alive and remain unto the 
coming of the Lord shall not prevent," that is, 
anticipate, or go into Heaven before, " them that 
are asleep," that is, the dead? This assurance cer- 
tainly would be useless, if the departed at the 
hour of death, had each entered into his final 
rest. But the Lord must first descend from 
Heaven — then, the dead in Christ shall be 
raised — then, those who are at that time living 
on the earth, shall be caught up to meet their 
Judge — and then the army of the ransomed shall 
together go in to their reward. " And so," that 
is, after all these things have taken place, " shall 
we ever be with the Lord." What can be more 
clear than the order in which these events are here 
laid down. 

In the Apocalyptic Vision, St. John represents 

n. 1 Thess. iv, 15, 16, 17. 



EASTER EVEN. 191 

the ancient martyrs as resting in the Paradise of 
God, awaiting their reward until their brethren 
from the earth have joined them, that together 
they may enter the celestial city. " I saw under 
the altar, the souls of them that were slain for 
the word of God, and for the testimony which 
they held : and they cried with a loud voice, 
saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost 
thou not avenge our blood on them that dwell 
on the earth ? And white robes were given un- 
to every one of them ; and it was said unto them, 
that they should rest yet for a little season, until 
their fellow servants also and their brethren, that 
should be killed as they were, should be ful- 
filled." Their happiness is incomplete. They 
are " under the altar' 1 — not in the full presence 
of God, but in a safe and holy place. Their por- 
tion is not yet that of perfect bliss, but only of 
tranquility and peace. They are not serving God 
actively, as do the angels, but are at rest, await- 
ing their call to judgment and to Heaven. Anx- 
iously do they look forward to the day which is 
to introduce them into the joy of their Lord, and 
therefore their inquiry is, " How long, O Lord, 
holy and true? But they are told, that they 

o. Rev. vi, 9, 10, 11. 



192 THE LENTEN FAST. 

must "rest yet for a little season," until the circle 
of the martyrs is completed, and the number of 
the elect gathered in ; that thus, in the harvest 
time of the earth, all who had suffered in the 
great cause of man's redemption — the sowers 
and the reapers in the world's wide field — might 
all rejoice together. Yet in the meanwhile, to 
comfort them in this state of expectation, and as 
some little earnest of the promise, u white robes 
were given unto every one of them." p 

It is singular, that exactly the same idea is 
given in the Apocraphal Book of Esdras, where 
after the writer had made inquiry of the angel 
with regard to the mysteries of the world to 
come, he receives this repfy — u Did not the souls 
also of the righteous ask question of these things 
in their chambers, saying, How long shall I hope 
on this fashion ? When cometh the fruit of the 
floor of our reward? And unto these things 
Uriel the archangel gave them answer, and said, 
" Even when the number of seeds is filled in you" 
— that is, when the number of the elect is ac- 
complished. a 

p. See Newman's Sermon on this passage, vol. iii, 
p, 399. 

q. 2 Esdras, iv, 35, 36, Dr. Macknight, another 



EASTER EVEN. 193 

Another strong proof from Scripture is found 
in that mysterious declaration of St. Peter, 
with regard to our Lord — "Being put to death 

celebrated Presbyterian divine, supports the same 
views. For instance, in his commentary on Heb. xi, 
39, 40, he says — " The Apostle's doctrine, that be- 
lievers are all to be rewarded together and at the same 
time, is agreeable to Christ's declaration, who told 
His disciples that they were not to come to the place 
He was going away to prepare for them, till He re- 
turned from Heaven to carry them to it (John xiv, 
3). Further, that the righteous are not to be re- 
warded till the end of the world, is evident from 
Christ's words (Matt, xiii, 40, 43). In like man- 
ner St. Peter hath told us, that the righteous are to 
be made glad with their reward at the revelation of 
Christ (1 Pet. iv, 13). John also tells us, that when 
He shall appear, we shall be made like Him, for we 
shall see Him as He is (1 John iii, 2). This determin- 
ation, not to reward the ancients without us, is highly 
proper, because the power and veracity of God will 
be more illustriously displayed in the view of angels 
and men, by raising the whole of Abraham's seed 
from the dead at once, and by introducing them into 
the heavenly country in a body, after the public ac- 
quittal at the judgment; than if each were made per- 
fect separately at their death." 

17 



194 THE LENTEN FAST. 

in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit ; by 
which also He went and preached unto the spi- 
rits in prison, which sometime were disobedient, 
when once the long suffering of God waited in 
the days of Noah.'' 1 Many attempts have been 
made to explain away this text, yet when care- 
fully analyzed, its natural rendering seems to 
present a full confirmation of the doctrine of an 
intermediate state. The most masterly discus- 
sion of it is given by Bishop Horsley, r where 
he proves conclusively, that in its interpretation 
by the ancient Church, it was always referred to 
the descent of our Lord into the place of depart- 
ed spirits. Let us then as briefly as possible fol- 
low his train of reasoning in the explanation of 
this verse. 

The meaning of the whole passage turns upon 
the interpretation we give to the words " spirits 
in prison." " The invisible mansion of departed 
spirits " — says Bishop Horsley — "though cer- 
tainly not a place of penal confinement to the 
good, is nevertheless in some respects a prison. 
It is a place of seclusion from the external world, 
a place of unfinished happiness, consisting in 
rest, security, and hope, rather than enjoyment. 
It is a place which the souls of men never would 

r. Horsley's Sermons, vol. ii, p. 86, serm. xx. 



EASTER EVEN. 195 

have entered, had not sin introduced death, and 
from which there is no exit by any natural means 
for those who have once entered. The deliver- 
ance of the saints from it is to be effected by our 
Lord's power. As a place of confinement there- 
fore, though not of punishment, it may well be 
called a prison. The original word however in 
this text imports not of necessity so much as this 
but merely a place of safe keeping : for so this 
passage might be rendered with great exactness. 
He went and preached to the spirits in safe keep- 
ing. And the invisible mansion of departed spi- 
rits is to the righteous a place of safe keeping, 
where they are preserved under the shadow of 
God's right hand, as their condition sometimes is 
described in Scripture, till the season shall arrive 
for their advancement to future glory ; as the 
souls of the wicked, on the other hand, are 
reserved in the other division of the same place, 
unto the judgment of the great day. Now if 
Christ went and preached to souls of men thus 
in prison, or in safe keeping, surely He went to 
the prison of those souls, or to the place of their 
custody ; and what place that should be but 
the Hell of the Apostles' creed, to which our 
Lord descended, I have not met with the critic 
that could explain. The souls in custody, or in 



196 THE LENTEN FAST. 

prison to whom our Savior went in His disem- 
bodied soul and preached, were those which for- 
merly were disobedient. The expression formerly 
were, or one while had been disobedient, implies, 
that they were recovered from that disobedience, 
and, before their death, had been brought to 
repentance and faith in the Redeemer to come. 
To such souls He went and preached." 

The meaning of the sentence, " being put to 
death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit," 
must also claim our attention. The word " Spi- 
rit " is here used in antithesis to the one translated 
" flesh." If therefore the latter refers, as it ne- 
cessarily does, to that part of our Lord's nature 
on which alone death could take effect, that is, 
his body ; the former must refer to that part over 
which the Destroyer had no power, that is, his 
soul. And as the word " quickened " is often 
used to signify, not merely a restoration of life 
which has been extinguished, but the preserva- 
tion of life which then subsists, the Apostle's 
words may be well rendered — " Being put to 
death in the flesh, but quick in the Spirit," that 
is, surviving in His soul the stroke of death which 
His body had sustained, " by which," or rather 
" in which," that is, in which surviving soul, " he 
went and preached to the souls of men in safe 



EASTER EVEiY. 197 

keeping/' Such is the rendering given by Mr. 
Polwhele in his Essay on the State of the Soul 
after death. " The original words " — he says 
— " are very strong and decisive. Literally sig- 
nifying, ' dead in His body ' — 6 lighted up with 
new life in His soul.' Escaped from the burden 
of His mortal body, His soul was animated with 
a more ardent vivacity — was rendered capable 
of more powerful energies, and with a life thus 
kindled into a brighter flame, He went and 
preached to the spirits whose bodies had per- 
ished in the deluge.' ' 

Another point with reference to this text re- 
mains to be inquired into — why are the ante- 
diluvians especially mentioned as being those to 
whom this preaching was addressed? Were 
not the souls of all who since their day had died 
in penitence, equally interested in our Lord's 
message ? " To this I can only answer " — says 
Bishop Horsley — " that I think I have observed, 
in some parts of Scripture, an anxiety, if the ex- 
pression may be allowed, of the sacred writers 
to convey distinct intimations that the antedilu- 
vian race is not uninterested in the redemption 

and the final retribution It may be 

conceived, that the souls of those who died in the 
dreadful visitation of the deluge might from that 
17* 



198 THE LENTEN FAST. 

circumstance have peculiar apprehensions of 
themselves, as the marked victims of divine ven- 
geance, and might peculiarly need the consola- 
tion which the preaching of our Lord in the Sub- 
terranean regions afforded to these prisoners of 
hope." 

Did He then publish those lofty doctrines of 
the Gospel, which now form the themes of His 
earthly ministers — the obligation of repentance 
and faith, by which the children of this world are 
summoned to their Lord? We answer, no — 
for He was not offering a new period of proba- 
tion to the generation which died " in the days 
of Noah." Their condition for Eternity was set- 
tled, when the rushing flood overwhelmed them, 
and they perished amid the ruins of the Elder 
world. Yet might He not have proclaimed to 
those, who having died in penitence, had been 
thus waiting and watching for ages, that at length 
the mighty sacrifice was offered up — that He 
had finished the work of redemption — and was 
now going to plead as their Intercessor before 
His Father's throne ? Might He not thus give 
assurance to the hope, to which for so long a 
time they had been cleaving ? We see nothing 
improbable in the idea. 

Such then is the analysis and rendering of 






EASTER EVEN. 199 

this passage, in which the most celebrated di- 
vines agree. If they have interpreted it aright, 
it proves most conclusively the fact of the descent 
into Hades. And through many ages of the 
Church, this text was relied upon as a principal 
foundation of this Catholic doctrine* St. Austin 
is stated to have been the first writer who ven- 
tured to doubt that this was the literal sense of 
St. Peter's declaration. In the Articles of Reli- 
gion adopted at the Convocation held in 1552, 
the sixth year of Edward VI, and published by 
the King's authority in the following year, the 
third article is in these words — " As Christ died 
and was buried for us, so also it is to be believed 
that He went down into Hell ; for the body lay 
in the sepulchre until the resurrection, but His 
ghost departing from Him, was with the ghosts 
that were in prison, or in Hell, as the place of 
St. Peter doth testify." When however, ten 
years later, in the fifth year of Queen Elizabeth, 
the Thirty-nine Articles were adopted in their 
present form, while Christ's descent into Hell, 
was still asserted, the proof of it from this text 
in St. Peter was omitted. s We think however, 
that the Church by setting forth this passage in 
the Epistle for Easter Even, seems to imply that 
s. Bishop Horseley, vol. ii, p. 99 



200 THE LENTEN FAST. 

it should be rendered as referring to our Lord's 
soul, particularly as it is followed by the Gospel, 
which describes so clearly the condition of the 
other part of His nature. 

We will present one more passage from Scrip- 
ture. In Rev. xx, 13, 14, we find this description 
given of the conclusion of all things earthly 
— the final triumph of the human race over 
death — and the abandonment forever of the in- 
termediate state. " And Death and Hell {Hades) 
delivered up the dead which were in them ; and 
they were judged every man according to their 
works. And death and Hell {Hades) were cast 
into the lake of fire. This is the second death." 
By this sublime personification it is clearly stat- 
ed, that Death shall deliver up the bodies, and 
Hades the spirits which were subject to their do- 
minion, and that then the latter shall be destroy- 
ed. Dr. Thos. Scott in his Commentary, has 
thus paraphrased this passage — "The grave, 
and separate state, will give up the bodies and 
souls contained in them, so that the whole multi- 
tude, which shall have lived upon earth . . . . 
shall experience a reunion of their souls with 
their bodies. Then Death and Hell, the grave 
and the separate state (represented as two per- 
sons), will ' be cast into the lake of fire ; ' that 



EASTER EVEN. 201 

is, they shall subsist no longer, to receive the 
bodies and souls of men ; there shall be no death 
in Heaven ; and all the wicked will be cast into 
the place of torment, in which death and the 
separate state will be swallowed up : for c this is 
the second death,' the final separation of sinners 
from God, without hopes of being restored to His 
favor, or delivered from His wrath." Dr. Camp- 
bell (the same Presbyterian divine from whom 
we have already quoted), thus renders it — u The 
death which consists in the separation of the 
soul from the body, and the state of souls inter- 
vening between death and judgment, shall be no 
more. To the wicked, these shall be succeeded 
by a more terrible death, the second death, the 
damnation of Gehenna, Hell properly so called. 
Indeed, in this sacred book, the commencement, 
as well as the destruction of this intermediate 
state, are so clearly marked, as to render it im- 
possible to mistake them. In chap, vi, 8, we 
learn that Hades follows close at the heels of 
death. 6 And I looked, and behold, a pale horse, 
and his name that sat on him was Death, and 
Hell {Hades) followed with him. ' From this 
passage, in chap, xx, we learn also, that both are 
involved in one common ruin at the universal 
judgment.' * 



202 THE LENTEN FAST. 

Such is a brief statement of the Scripture argu- 
ment for this doctrine. We now pass on to the 
consideration, that it has always, even from Pri- 
mitive times, been an Article of Faith in the 
Catholic Church. The learned Bingham expli- 
citly declares it to have been the belief of the 
early Church, that " the soul is but in an imper- 
fect state of happiness till the Resurrection, 
when the whole man shall obtain a complete 
victory over death, and by the last judgment be 
established in an endless state of consummate 
happiness and glory."* 

St. Clement, of whom the Apostle Paul speaks 
as his " fellow laborer, whose name is in the 
Book of Life," thus writes in his Epistle to the 
Corinthians — " All the generations from Adam 
to this day, are past and gone, but they that 
have finished their course in charity, according 
to the grace of Christ, possess the region of the 
godly, who shall be manifested in the visitation 
of the kingdom of Christ. For it is written, 
6 Enter into thy chambers, for a very little while, 
till my wrath and fury be passed over, and I will 
remember the good day, and will raise you again 
out of your graves.' " M 

t. Orig. Eccles. lib. xv, chap. 3, sec. 16. 
u, Patres Apos. Cotel., vol, i, p. 276, 



EASTER EVEN. 203 

Justin Martyr, who lived about the middle of 
the second century, in his Dialogue with Trypho, 
among the Catholic doctrines taught him when 
he first became a Christian, delivers this for 
one — "That the souls of the godly, (after death 
till the resurrection,) remain in a certain better 
region, and unrighteous and wicked souls in an 
evil one." And in the very same book he con- 
demns as an error in the Gnostics, their holding 
the belief — " That as soon as they die, their souls 
are received up into Heaven." v 

Similar to this is the testimony of Irenaeus, 
who lived also in the second century. In ar- 
guing against some ancient heretics, who held, 
that when they died their souls went at once to 
Heaven, he urges against them the example of 
our Savior, " who," says he, " observed in Him- 
self the law of dead persons, and did not pre- 
sently after His death go to Heaven, but stayed 

three days in the place of the dead. 

Whereas then our Lord went into the midst of 
the shadow of death, where the souls of deceased 
persons abode, and then afterwards rose again in 
the body, and was after his resurrection taken up 
to Heaven, it is plain that the souls of His dis- 
ciples, for whose sake the Lord did these things, 

v. Bishop Bull, vol. i, p. 110. 



204 THE LENTEN FAST. 

shall go likewise to that invisible place appointed 
to them by God, and there abide till the resurrec- 
tion, waiting for the time thereof; and afterward 
receiving their bodies, and rising again perfectly, 
i. e. in their bodies as our Lord did, shall so 
come to the sight of God." w Again, in his fifth 
Book, he expressly distinguishes Paradise from 
the Kingdom of Heaven, and reckons it a lower 
degree of happiness " to enjoy the delights of 
Paradise," than " to be counted worthy to dwell 
in Heaven." But yet he acknowledges that the 
Savior shall be seen in both, " according as they 
shall be worthy or meet who see Him." And 
he concludes the chapter with the declaration, 
" that those that are saved shall proceed by de- 
grees to their perfect beatitude." That is, that 
they shall, as St. Ambrose says, "through the re- 
freshments of Paradise, arrive to the full glories 
of the Heavenly kingdom."* 

Tertullian, who lived at the close of the second 
century, calls Paradise, " a place of divine plea- 
santness, appointed to receive the spirits of the 
saints." y He says also, " Heaven is not yet 

w. Wall on Inf. Bap. part ii, chap. 8. 
x. Bishop Bull, pp. Ill, 112. 
y. Ibid. p. 112. 



EASTER EVEN. 205 

open to any, the earth, or Hell, being yet shut, 
but that at the end of the world, the Kingdom of 
Heaven shall be unlocked." Again — " All souls 
are in Hell {Hades), that there are both punish- 
ments and rewards, that both Dives and Lazarus 
are there, that the soul is both punished and 
comforted in Hell {Hades), in expectation of the 
future judgment" ? And even after he had fallen 
into the Heresy of the Montanists, he was obliged 
to admit this to be a Catholic doctrine, "that 
the good souls in that subterraneous region, do 
enjoy a happiness not to be despised, that they 
do in the bosom of Abraham receive the comfort 
of the Resurrection to come, that is, that they 
are at present in a state of rest and happiness, 
and live in a sure and certain hope of a greater 
happiness at the resurrection." a 

In the same way, the author of Questions and 
Answers to the Orthodox, (who is supposed to 
have lived in the fourth century,) in his reply to 
the seventy-fifth question, having said that in this 
life there is no difference as to worldly concerns* 
between the righteous and the wicked, imme- 
diately adds — "But after death, presently the 

z. Lord King's Hist, of Apos. Creed, p. 114. 

a. Bishop Bull, p. 113. 
18 



206 THE LENTEN FAST. 

righteous are separated from the unrighteous. 
For they are carried by angels into their meet 
places. And the souls of the righteous are con- 
veyed into Paradise, where they enjoy the con- 
versation and sight of Angels and Archangels, 
and of our Savior Christ also by way of vision : 
according to what is said, when we are absent 
from the bod)^ we are present with the Lord. 
But the souls of the unrighteous are carried to 
the infernal regions, &c And they, (that is, 
both sorts of souls), are kept in their meet places 
till the day of the Resurrection and recom- 
pense.'' 1 h 

Novatian, in the third century, says — "Those 
places which lie under the earth, are not empty 
of distinguished and ordered powers ; for that is 
the place whither the souls both of the godly 
and ungodly are led, receiving the forejudgment 
of their future doom.' 1 Lactantius, of the same 
century, says — u None should think, that souls 
were immediately judged after death ; for they 
are all detained in one common custody, till the 
time shall come when the greatest Judge shall 
examine their respective merits. " Hilary, in the 
middle of the fourth century, says — " It is the 
necessary law of nature, that bodies should be 

b. Bishop Bull, p. 123. 



EASTER EVEN. 207 

buried, and that souls should descend into hell, 
where they are reserved for an entrance into the 
Heavenly kingdom by the custody of the Lord, 
to wit, in the bosom of Abraham, unto which a 
great gulf hinders the wicked from approach- 
ing. ,,c Such indeed is the uniform testimony of 
the Fathers of the early Church. They believed 
not that the departed had already entered into 
the perfect bliss of Heaven, but, (in the words of 
St. Chrysostom,) " that they will not be crown- 
ed before us, God having appointed one time of 
coronation for all." 

On this doctrine also were founded, those 
Commendatory Prayers for the dead, which were 
used in the ancient Liturgies. These, known 
by the names of St. Peter's, St. James's, St. 
Mark's, (or St. Cyril's,) and St. John's Liturgy, 
were used in the Oriental Churches, and, as has 
been shown by Mr. Palmer, in his Antiquities 
of the English Ritual, are undoubtedly the four 
original forms from which all the Liturgies in 
the world have been taken. u They resemble 
one another too much to have grown up in- 
dependently, and too little to have been copied 
from one another." One point of correspond- 

c. Quoted in Lord King's Hist, of Apos. Creed, p. 
214-15-16. 



208 THE LENTEN FAST. 

ence is, that each of them has a prayer in the 
Communion Service, " for the peace of all those 
who have departed this life in God's faith and 
fear," concluding with a petition for communion 
with them. A portion of this prayer was in 
these words — " We commend unto Thy mercy, 
O Lord, all other Thy servants, which are de- 
parted hence from us with the sign of faith, and 
now do rest in the sleep of peace : grant unto 
them, we beseech Thee, Thy mercy and ever- 
lasting peace ; and that at the day of the general 
resurrection, we, and all they which be of the 
mystical body of Thy Son, may altogether be set 
at His right hand, and hear that His most joyful 
voice, ; Come unto me, O ye that be blessed of 
My Father, and possess the kingdom which is 
prepared for you from the beginning of the 
world.' Grant this, O Father, for Jesus Christ's 
sake, our only Mediator and Advocate." This 
prayer was retained in the Liturgy in " Edward 
VPs 1st Book," but altered in the 2d, at the in- 
stigation of Bucer and Calvin. This was pro- 
bably done, as Mr. Palmer conjectures, because 
these prayers were so connected in the minds of 
the common people with the idea of purgatory, 
that their continuance would have involved the 
risk of propagating this pernicious error. As 



EASTER EVEN. 209 

remodeled, the prayer in our service now stands 
thus — " And we also bless Thy holy name for all 
Thy servants departed this life in Thy faith and 
fear ; beseeching Thee to give us grace to follow 
their good examples, that with them we may be 
partakers of Thy heavenly kingdom.'" 

We do not pretend to discuss the propriety of 
these prayers ; we only mention their existence 
in the ancient Liturgies, as furnishing a proof of 
the belief of the Church in the state of Paradise 
after death. " This custom " — said the learned 
Bishop Collier — " seems to have gone on the 
principle that supreme happiness is not to be 
expected till the resurrection ; and that the in- 
terval between death and the end of the world, 
is a state of imperfect bliss. ,,rf 

Thus it is then that the Church has inherited 
this truth, and so she has retained it. Her third 
Article is — "As Christ died for us, and was 
buried, so also it is to be believed, that He went 
down into Hell ;" w r hile in her creed she teaches 
her children ever to confess — "He descended 
into Hell ;" inserting in the margin, by way of 
explanation, " He went into the place of depart- 
ed spirits.' n In the same way she recognizes the 

d. Eccles. Hist, of Great Britain, Part II, Book 
iv, p. 257. 

18* 



210 THE LENTEN FAST. 

doctrine of the intermediate state in all her pub- 
lic offices. She never speaks of the fullness of 
joy as something to be attained by the Christian 
immediately after death, but looks forward to it 
with hope, as a consummation to follow the 
second coming of our Lord, the resurrection of 
the dead, and the judgment of the last day. Thus 
in the collect for the first Sunday in Advent, we 
pray, that " when Christ shall come again in His 
glorious majesty to judge both the quick and 
dead, we may rise to the life immortal." 

In the Burial service, as we might naturally 
expect, we find a plain distinction made between 
the rest we are to inherit at death, and that 
which is to be our portion at the last day. For 
instance, in one of the concluding prayers, we 
entreat the Father, " that when we shall depart 
this life, we may rest in Him ; and that at the 
general resurrection in the last day, we may be 
found acceptable in His sight, and receive that 
blessing which His well beloved Son shall then 
pronounce to those who love and fear Him, say- 
ing, Come, ye blessed children of my Father, 
receive the kingdom prepared for you from the 
beginning of the world." Here, two separate 
times and two distinct rewards are mentioned. 
In the same way, in one of the other prayers, 



EASTER EVEN. 211 

after speaking of " those who have finished their 
course in faith," as "now resting from their la- 
bors," we are taught to look forward to a still 
higher stage of felicity to which they may reach, 
and therefore pray — " And we beseech Thee, 
that we, with all those who are departed in the 
true faith of Thy holy name, may have our per- 
fect consummation and bliss, both in body and 
soul, in Thy eternal and everlasting glory." e 

Again — another argument in support of this 
doctrine is derived from its being so evidently in 
accordance with reason. A belief indeed in the 
immediate entrance of the soul into its full re- 
ward or punishment is one which necessarily 
leads us into inextricable difficulties. 

Each individual passes through his probation 
here, a compound being, the earthly and the spi- 
ritual united by a chain, the links of which we 
can not discover, though we daily and hourly 

e. This prayer in the service of the Church of 
England is even more explicit, where the petition is 
offered to God, " of His gracious goodness shortly to 
accomplish the number of His elect, and to hasten 
His kingdom : that we, with all those that are de- 
parted in the true faith of His holy name, may have 
our perfect consummation and bliss both in body and 
soul." 



212 THE LENTEN FAST. 

feel the influence of one part of our nature upon 
the other The material and the immaterial sin 
and suffer together. Tempting and being tempt- 
ed, they go through life — the spirit by its ima- 
ginings urging on its sluggish partner to action, 
while the body by the outward senses trammels 
down the soul, to become "of the earth, earthly." 
Participating in the same acts, and deserving of 
the same recompense, should they not be united 
before they fully enter on that state of bliss or 
woe which is to be unchanged through eternity ? 
Can we indeed conceive of any retribution which 
will fitly reward man for all his doings here, if it 
does not act upon both parts of his nature ? Can 
he fully rejoice or suffer, while existing as a 
purely spiritual being, in this state of separation ? 
Can we believe therefore that he will receive his 
final sentence — or that there will be any use in 
pronouncing it — until he stands before the 
throne, the same he was in every respect, while 
living a probationer here ? Why then should 
he enter into his final state before that hour ar- 
rives ? 

Again — supposing that he does pass at once 
into Heaven or Hell, judgment in that case must 
be pronounced upon him as soon as his spirit 
leaves the body. Must not then the process of 
finally acquitting or condemning the disembodied 



EASTER EVEN. 213 

souls which each hour are winging their flight 
to the eternal world, be ceaselessly going on ? 
This would indeed entirely set aside the general 
judgment of the last day, unless we can suppose 
the absurdity, that now the spirit is judged, 
but then the body alone will stand up for retribu- 
tion. For what could it be but an empty show, 
to recall from Heaven the countless tribes of the 
just after they have been glorified there for ages, 
and then once more to return them to that abode, 
with the sentence, " Enter ye into the joy of 
your Lord!" Bishop Sherlock, in his " Practical 
discourse concerning a Future Judgment," sums 
up this argument in a single sentence — " And 
the truth is, if all men have a final sentence 
passed on them, as soon as they go into the other 
world, it is very unaccountable, why Christ at 
the last day shall come with such a terrible pomp 
and solemnity to judge and condemn those, who 
are judged, and condemned, and executed al- 
ready as much as they can ever be." But the 
plain teaching of scripture is, that there shall be 
a day at the end of the world, when not only the 
unnumbered multitudes of the human race, but 
also the apostate angels who are " reserved in 
chains " against that solemn hour, shall together 
receive the sentence which all eternity can not 



214 THE LENTEN FAST. 

reverse. Our Lord is now represented, standing 
as Mediator before the throne of His Father, and 
not until the mighty drama of this world is en- 
tirely concluded, will He ascend the tribunal of 
judgment. 

Neither, on the other hand, can it be argued, 
that this admission to a state of rest merely and 
imperfect bliss, would in any way forestall the 
judgment of the last day, or that the solemnities 
of Christ's tribunal would be rendered vain by 
that previous knowledge of our destiny, which 
must be gained from our intermediate state. 
" The condition of one who dies in his sins, and 
awakes to a sense of the retribution that awaits 
him, may, not inaptly, be compared to that of 
a criminal who is committed to a gaol for trial, 
without the slightest hope of escaping conviction. 
It could hardly be said of such a person, that his 
fear and anguish there would forestall the solem- 
nities of justice, and render nugatory the subse- 
quent administration and execution of the law. 
The forms and proceedings of earthly justice do 
not indeed, provide a precisely similar illustration 
to the case of those who have persevered in well 
doing ; but nevertheless, we are unable fcTcom- 
prehend, why the analogy should not likewise 
be extended to them. What is there unreason- 



EASTER EVEN. 215 

able in the surmise, that a righteous man may 
awaken from death to that full assurance of ac- 
quital and acceptance which some have affirmed 
to be attainable even in the present life ? Why 
may he not be placed in a state of which the en- 
joyment shall consist in the knowledge that his 
trials and agitations are at an end, that the for- 
giveness of his sins is finally sealed, and that a 
reward will at some period be assigned him, 
proportioned to his faithfulness, by the infallible 
wisdom and goodness of his Judge V" f 

How natural then seems the order of events, 
when we adopt the belief of an intermediate 
state! New light is thus poured upon many a 
passage of Scripture, while every difficulty which 
was suggested by the reason, at once passes 
away. There we behold the departed, resting 
in their separate mansions, through all the ages 
which intervene between the hour of death and 
the final consummation of all things. In peace 
the just repose, for the cares and sorrows of this 
lower world have passed away forever, and in 
the full assurance of hope they look forward to 
that hour, when their " Lord shall be revealed 
from Heaven,' 1 and they be admitted to the ful- 
ness of joy, in the " place which he hath pre-? 

/. British Critic, No. 17. 



216 THE LENTEN PAST. 

pared for them." There also, yet separated by 
" a gulf which they can not pass,"* 7 are the wick- 
ed. The record of a wasted life is ever before 
them, for already conscience has commenced her 
work, and they feel the gnawings of that worm 
which dieth not forever. In trembling and fear 
therefore, they await the revolution of that cycle 
of ages, and the coming of that day of decision, 
when they shall be forced to descend to a deeper, 
more awful state of torment. Thus it is, that 
the general judgment becomes, as Scripture re- 
presents it, the winding up of this world's history. 
There, the descendants of Adam, of " every 
kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation," 
meet for the last time - — they are "judged for 
their works" — the final separation is made — 
and they pass away, to begin their endless retri- 
bution. 7 * 

g. Luke, xvi, 26. 

h. It will be at once perceived, that this doctrine 
is widely different from the belief of the Eomanists 
in Purgatory. Their doctrine is, (as given in their 
own words) — " Some ^there are, though I fear but 
few, that have before their death so fully cleared all 
accounts with the Divine Majesty, and washed away 
all their stains in the blood of the Lamb, as to go 
straight to Heaven after death; and such as those 



EASTER EVEN. 217 

A single question more "remains to be"answered. 
It is the inquiry, What was the object of our 
Lord's descent into the place of departed Spirits ? 

One end answered by it was, that in this re- 
spect also He conformed Himself to the lot of 
those whose nature He had assumed. When He 
left " the glory which He had with the Father 
before the world was," it seems to have been 
His purpose to become " like unto us in all things, 
sin only excepted.'" He passed through every 
trial to which frail humanity is subjected. His 
were, the feebleness and pains of wailing in- 

stand not in need of our prayers. Others there are, 
and their numbers are very great, who die in the 
guilt of deadly sin, and such as these go straight to 
Hell, like the rich glutton in the Gospel, St. Luke, 
xvi, and therefore can not be bettered by our prayers. 
But besides these two kinds, there are many Christ- 
ians, who, when they die, are neither so perfectly 
pure and clean, as to exempt them from the least 
spot or stain, nor yet so unhappy as to die under the 
guilt of unrepented deadly sin. Now such as these 
the Church believes to be, for a time, in a middle 
state, which we call Purgatory ; and these are they 
who are capable of receiving benefit by our prayers.'* 
The Catholic Christian instructed. By the Most Rev. 
Dr. Challoner. 

19 



218 THE LENTEN FAST. 

fancy — the cares which gather around the years 
of manhood — the shrinking of nature at the 
sight of death — and the last convulsive struggle 
which bursts the prison-house of clay. And 
even when He entered the gates of the grave, 
He continued to tread the same path in which 
each one of us — his brethren after the flesh — 
must one day walk. His body was committed 
to the tomb, after a time to be awakened again 
as an incorruptible and spiritual body, freed from 
all human infirmities, and then to pass into the 
Heavens. And for the same reason must His 
soul also abide in the resting place of those He 
came to redeem, until the hour in which it was 
to be once more united with His body. Thus it 
was, that the humiliation of the Son of God was 
not confined to this world. It did not end with 
the agonies of the Crucifixion. It continued 
even after He had passed the veil which separates 
the living from the dead. As a disembodied 
spirit, He found that he must still acknowledge 
brotherhood with mortals from the earth. 

Again — our Lord thus proved to us the cer- 
tainty of our victory over Hades. We point to 
the resurrection, and say, "Thus it is that we 
know we also shall triumph over the grave. He 
hath burst the band of Death asunder, and with 



EASTER EVEN. . 219 

the like power shall His people also be gifted." 
This it is, which sheds a glory around the tomb, 
and lights up its gloomy caverns with a celestial 
radiance. 

But would not the work have been incom- 
plete, if no pledge had been given us of the Spi- 
it's victory in the invisible world — if our Master 
had neglected to point out the path which it 
also was to tread, in the interval between death 
and the resurrection ?" But "He hath done all 
things well." Nothing was left unaccomplished. 
His grace was displayed even in the mansions 
of the departed, and to us therefore they are 
divested of all terror. "His soul was not left 
in Hades," neither shall His children be forever 
detained there. He now " has the keys of Hell 
{Hades) and of Death," and shall release them 
when the appointed hour comes, that they too 
may ascend as He did, to the "fullness of joy." 

And may we not add also, that another object 
of His descent was, that He might there proclaim 
the news of His redemption to the spirits which 
were in safe keeping ? We have already alluded 
to this, when discussing that difficult passage in 
St. Peter, and stated what must have been the 
manner of His preaching. There, the righteous 
had rested for ages, in anticipation of that future 



220 THE LENTEN FAST. 

atonement which was to be wrought out by the 
Son of God. Is there any thing strange then in 
the idea, that when that ransom had been paid, 
which secured their salvation, and the power of 
their great Enemy was forever broken, He 
should descend and unfold these glorious tidings 
to the countless myriads of the redeemed 1 
While on earth, they had looked forward with 
the anticipation of hope, and " rejoiced to see 
that day " even through the mist of intervening 
centuries ; but now, these visions were realized 
and the Messiah Himself proclaims, that " it is 
finished.'' 

" The passage in St Peter, which speaks of 
Christ as having ' preached to the spirits,' gives 
we think" — says an eloquent living writer — 
" something of foundation to the opinion, that 
whilst His body was in the sepulchre, Christ 
preached to spirits in the separate state, opening 
up to them, probably, those mysteries of redemp- 
tion into which even angels, before-time, had 
vainly striven to look. The kings, and the pro- 
phets, and the righteous men, who had desired 
to see the things which apostles saw, and had 
not seen them, and to hear the things which they 
heard, and had not heard them — unto these, it 
may be, Christ brought a glorious roll of intelli- 



EASTER EVEN. 221 

gence ; and we can imagine Him standing in 
the midst of a multitude which no man can num- 
ber, who had all gone down to the chambers of 
death with but indistinct and far-off glimpses 
of the promised Messiah, and explaining to the 
eager assembly the beauty, and the stability of 
that deliverance which He had just wrought out 
through obedience and blood-shedding. And, oh, 
there must then have gone forth a tide of the 
very loftiest gladness through the listening crowds 
of the separate state ; and then, perhaps, for the 
first time, admiration and extacy summoning out 
the music, was heard that anthem, whose rich 
peal rolls down the coming eternity, 6 Worthy, 
worthy, worthy is the Lamb.'' Then, it may be, 
for the first time, did Adam embrace all the mag- 
nificence of the promise, that ; the seed of the 
woman should bruise the serpent's head ;' and 
Abraham understand how the well-being of the 
human population depended on one that should 
spring from his own loins ; and David ascertain 
all the meaning of mysterious strains, which, as 
prefiguring Messiah, he had swept from the harp- 
strings. Then too, the long train of Aaron's 
line, who had stood at the altar, and slain the 
victims, and burnt the incense, almost weighed 
down by a ritual, the import of whose ceremo- 

17* 



222 THE LENTEN FAST. 

nies was but indistinctly made known — then, it 
may be, they were suddenly and sublimely 
taught the power of every figure, and the ex- 
pression of every rite ; whilst the noble company 
of prophets, holy men who 6 spake as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost,'' but who, rapt into 
the future, uttered much which only the future 
could develop — these, as though starting from 
the sleep of ages, sprang into the centre of that 
gorgeous panorama of truth which they had been 
commissioned to outline, but over whose spread- 
ings there had rested the cloud and the mist ; and 
Isaiah thrilled at the glories of his own saying, 
" unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given ;" 
and Hosea grasped all the mightiness of the de- 
claration, which he had poured forth whilst de- 
nouncing the apostasies of Samaria, " O Death, 
I will be thy plagues ; O Grave, I will be thy de- 
struction." 

We know not why it may not thus be consi- 
dered that the day of Christ's entrance into the 
separate state was, like the Pentecostal day to 
the Church upon earth, a day of the rolling off 
of obscurity from the plan of redemption, and of 
showing how 'glory, honor and immortality,' 
were made accessible to the remotest of the 
world's families; a day on which a thousand 



EASTER EVEN. 223 

types gave place to realities and a thousand pre- 
dictions leaped into fulfillment ; a day therefore, 
on which there circulated through the enormous 
gatherings of Adam and his elect posterity, al- 
ready ushered into rest, a gladness which had 
never yet been reached in all the depth of their 
beatifical repose. And neither, then, can we dis- 
cover cause why Christ may not be thought to 
rhave filled the office of preacher to the buried 
tribes of the righteous, and thus to have assumed 
that character which he has never since laid 
aside, that of ; a minister of the sanctuary, and 
of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, 
and not man.' " * 

This then is the doctrine of the Intermediate 
state. Comfortable indeed to man in his feeble- 
ness is the thought, that even in this respect his 
Lord hath prepared the way for him ! The path 
which connects this world of toil and sorrow 
with one of songs and gladness, has been clearly 
pointed out. It is still radiant with his Master's 
footsteps, and His followers may tread it with- 
out fear. And if, when all things are bright 
before him, he realizes this but feebly, yet to him 
also there must come " a time to suffer and be 
silent," when spiritual promises alone will be 

i. Melvill's Sermons, vol. i, p. 49, 



224 THE LENTEN FAST. 

able to satisfy the intense longings of his soul. 
As man journeys onward through an evil world, 
the glory of this lower life fades away — its hues 
of beauty disappear — and are lost at last as the 
clouds gether around his setting sun. Beautifully 
indeed does one of England's Christian poets 
portray this change which passes over all things, 
thus weaning the Spirit away from this earth, 
and disposing it to look to Heaven. 

" Heaven lies about us in our infancy! 
Shades of the prison-house begin to close 

Upon the growing Boy, 
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 

He sees it in his joy ; 
The Youth, who daily farther from the east 

Must travel still, is Nature's Priest, 

And by the vision splendid 

Is on his way attended; 
At length the Man perceives it die away, 
And fade into the light of common da,y."j 

Such is truly the sorrowful process of man's 
life. One by one the objects in which he had 
garnered up his affections pass away, until often 
in the gray twilight of his days he is left alone 

j. Wordsworth's Ode — " Intimations of Immor- 
tality from recollections of early childhood." 



EASTER EVEN. 225 

and desolate. Then indeed if he look around 
for sympathy, from the busy, earnest world about 
him there comes forth no response. Orestes-like 
he seeks for peace with a deeper yearning than 
that suppliant in the ancient Grecian Drama, k 
yet he seeks in vain. The flowers of his earthly 
Paradise are faded, and its cisterns broken. 
Memory lifts up her voice within him, like the 
archangel's trump, summoning from their forgot- 
ten graves, thoughts and scenes which long since 
had passed away. Their images rise up mourn- 
fully, as it were to mock him, for he knows that 
the reality can never return. For him is reserved 
only the lonely night, which stealing insensibly 
on, is ever deepening its shadows about his path. 
When therefore this world thus vanishes away 
and life by its own vicissitudes has taught him 
the lesson of his vanity — when nothing but evils 
seem to " choke Time's groaning tide " — how 
cheering is the thought, that the future yet re- 
mains to be his certain heritage ! He raises his 
eyes above the gathering darkness and the clouds 
which surround him, and beholds beyond them? 
that land which is always radiant with a celestial 
glory. The past, with its sorrowful memories, 
is forgotten, and he lives only in the anticipations 

k. jEschyl. Eumen. 



226 THE LENTEN FAST. 

of the future. He is not driven forward to the 
coming world without "knowing the things 
that shall befall him there." He is sustained 
by the u hope which maketh not ashamed." 
And thus he passes along through the remain- 
ing days of his pilgrimage, sharing in that 
spirit which the old artists attempted to embody 
in their delineations of Faith when they repre- 
sented her treading a rugged and thorny road, 
yet clasping the Cross to her heart, and her eyes 
intently fixed upon the calm, clear Heavens 
above. He feels that Death shall only come 
like the Angel to the Apostles, bursting the bars 
of his prison house, and leading him forth to the 
light and to the day. His spirit pines within 
him for the sweet waters of the River of Life. 
The voices of the dead too, who have gone be- 
fore, come solemnly to his ears, as they urge him 
to press onward to the promised land. There, 
his wanderings shall end, and the pilgrim staff* 
be forever cast aside. There he shall be at peace 
in the mansions of rest, with the mighty army of 
patriarchs and apostles, and confessors and mar- 
tyrs, who have already slept in the faith. Cheer- 
ed by a brighter manifestation of his Master's 
presence than can be his lot in this world, he 
shall await his full reward, and the crown which 



EASTER EVEN. 227 

shall be given him at the last day. With what 
unwavering confidence may he then look up and 
say — 

" Soon wilt Thou take us to Thy tranquil bower 

To rest one little hour, 
Till Thine elect, are number'd, and the grave 

Call Thee to come and save : 
Then on thy bosom borne shall we descend, 

Again with earth to blend, 
Earth all refin'd with bright supernal fires, 
Tinctur'd with holy blood, and wing'd with pure 
desires. 

Meanwhile, with every son and saint of Thine 

Along the glorious line, 
Sitting by turns beneath Thy sacred feet 

We'll hold communion sweet. 
Know them by look and voice, and thank them all 

For helping us in thrall, 
For words of hope, and bright examples given 
To show through moonless skies that there is light 

in Heaven."* 

Thus ages shall glide by, until the history of 
this world is completed, and the number of the 
elect made up. Then, our long expected Lord 
shall descend with a shout — the dust of each one 

I. Keble's Easter Ev$. 



228 THE LENTEN FAST. 

of the saints be collected from the four winds, 
united again to its former partner, as the spirit 
comes forth from its resting place, and all shall 
gather around the throne of Him whom they fol- 
lowed while on earth, ready to receive the sen- 
tence — " Well done, good and faithful servants, 
enter ye into the joy of your Lord. 1 ' This shall 
be the Great Easter of the Earth. 



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